


messages in a bottle

by copperwings



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst, Building a relationship, Chris and his mystery man, Chris's mystery man makes an appearance, Emotional Rollercoaster, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Here comes the angst, Like really slow, M/M, Mentions of Anxiety, Museum AU, Phichit loves playing matchmaker, SO MUCH FLUFF, Slow Build, Sorry Not Sorry, Strangers to Lovers, Tooth-Rotting Fluff, Victor is a research assistant, messages in a bottle, sorry about that, this fic is on indefinite hiatus, warning! archeology
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-05-13
Updated: 2017-08-01
Packaged: 2018-10-31 06:46:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 12
Words: 66,378
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10893924
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/copperwings/pseuds/copperwings
Summary: AU. Victor worked in a museum as a research assistant while doing his doctorate dissertation in archeology. In a tiny park across the street from the museum there was a fountain that Victor passed every day on his way to work. One morning, Victor noticed a bottle floating in the fountain and fished it up. Inside the bottle there was a message. On a whim, Victor decided to answer the message by leaving his own in the bottle, and thus ended up exchanging letters with a complete stranger who refused to reply any questions about their identity. Eventually, Victor decided it was time to find out who the person behind the messages is…





	1. letters from a stranger

It all started with a park.

If you could call it that.

Every morning at the crack of dawn – or so it felt – Victor walked the eight blocks from his tiny apartment to the museum. On the way there he stopped to buy a takeaway coffee and a bagel, sipping on the hot beverage as he walked, the bagel tucked inside his briefcase. Along the way there was a tiny green patch that somehow had gotten the title of a _park_ , even though it was just a few shrubs and two trees shading a lonely bench along a gravel path. At the other end of this pathetic excuse for a park there was a small round fountain, water bubbling out from the mouth of a fish at the center of the fountain and into the circular bowl of water below. Victor had to walk around the fountain every morning to get to the intersection where he could cross the street to get to the museum gates.

Victor liked to switch the side of the fountain he walked around every other day. On even days he walked around the right side of the stone bowl and on odd days he walked around the left. Not that it really mattered which side he walked around, but it was just a small fun detail in his morning routine. The fountain was a little sad-looking and not particularly well-maintained, so Victor had gotten into the habit of fishing out pieces of trash if they happened to be floating on the side of the fountain he walked around that day.

If there was anything he had learned during his months working at the museum, it was that people were filthy, littering morons. Or so it seemed, because on most days there was something floating in the fountain – a popsicle stick, a scrunched-up cigarette pack or some candy wrappers.

Victor rolled his eyes as he saw another shiny candy wrapper floating near the edge of the fountain, bobbing up and down in the slight current caused by the water splashing down from the fish’s mouth. Victor reached out and grabbed the wrapper, shaking water droplets off the offending object and discarding it into the nearby trashcan. _People are such pigs._

He crossed the street and flashed his electronic key at the museum gates, watching the light blink green as a sign that he was granted access even outside opening hours. He walked across the tiny courtyard but instead of walking up the front stairs Victor headed for the side door that was located below the staircase and led to the ground floor of the building.

“Morning,” Victor greeted the sleepy-looking security guard in the security booth. The glass-walled booth was housing dozens of small black-and-white screens that showed the security camera feed from all over the museum.

“Morning,” the guard greeted him with a nod and then went back to sipping coffee and checking the screens.

Victor’s office was located here on the ground floor, while all the exhibitions and galleries as well as the curators’ offices were on the upper levels. He stopped in front of a plain door that had a cardboard sign taped on the wall next to it. Someone had hastily written on the cardboard:

_V. Nikiforov, research assistant_

They had meant to get a more professional-looking sign for his door, but somehow it had never happened.

Victor unlocked the door and stepped into the cramped space. Inside, there was a desk and not much room for anything else. Papers and photographs were piled on every available surface. There was a very high probability that this space used to be a cleaning supply closet, but they had needed some place to put Victor and his stuff, so here he was.

Victor was currently working on his doctorate dissertation on the depictions of androgyny in late Roman ceramic art. This meant that the minuscule space he called his office was filled from floor to ceiling with research papers and pictures of vases, pottery and other types of ceramics. There were also a few actual pottery pieces in boxes beside his desk, but Victor hadn’t yet had time to even open the boxes. As a research assistant he was expected to, well, _assist_ and then if there was time he could work on his own dissertation. In Victor’s opinion, this kind of sucked because he needed to prioritize everything else above his own work. Then again, he got an office space and a lot of research data from the museum so he couldn’t complain. Also, he _did_ get paid to assist at the museum, even if the amount of salary hardly differentiated him from an unpaid intern. Anyway, it was still better than nothing.

Victor pulled his laptop from his briefcase along with the bagel that looked like it had been stomped on a few times. He set the laptop on the desk and flipped the lid open, glancing at the time. He still had an hour before he was supposed to go help the curator on the second floor, so he thought he might as well try and get some work done on his dissertation before that. Victor munched on the sad-looking bagel and checked a few new articles his advisor had forwarded to his email as possible references, then typed a few notes to himself so he wouldn’t forget to add the references later.

Most of Victor’s days were like this: assisting the curators and other researchers and then, if he had time, writing his own dissertation. He went out for lunch at the nearby diner and returned to work at the museum until nightfall. If someone had told Victor that this was what getting a PhD was like, he might have told the university to _shove it_ when he had gotten the acceptance letter for the doctorate program. Victor had applied on a whim and had been more than surprised when they had actually accepted him into the program, and now that he was just one _tiny_ little dissertation short of his degree, it was too late to back off.

Then again, it wasn’t like he had anything better to do with his time. Most of his friends had graduated a long time ago and gone on to get jobs and families and mortgages, but Victor had continued his studies. Studying to get a PhD was by no means _awful_ or anything, it was just that nobody had told him beforehand that getting a doctorate could get very lonely at times.

If he was honest, Victor kind of felt like he was in a rut with his life. His dissertation wasn’t advancing as well as his advisor would probably have wanted, and other aspects of his life were just not that interesting. He had his dissertation, his work at the museum and a couple of friends he didn’t see all that often. Sometimes Victor wondered if this what life was going to be? A series of uninspiring events, days blending into each other and one day he was going to wake up and be seventy and think, _was this it?_

 

~

 

The first time that he noticed the bottle was on a Saturday. Just a regular, run-of-the-mill Saturday in April when he needed to go in to keep the interns in check while they were doing inventory. Victor passed through the tiny park and went around the fountain from the left side, when he noticed the bottle floating in the bowl of the fountain. It was on the other side, but the color of the glass bottle caught his eye; it was strikingly green against the gray background of the fountain’s stone basin. Victor circled around to the other side and lowered his takeaway coffee mug on the edge of the fountain. He then reached out and grabbed the bottle by the neck, pulling it out of the water. Victor stared at the bottle, because it didn’t look like trash that had been discarded on a whim – the cap of the bottle was tightly screwed on and the bottle had been washed clean of any labels.

The bottle was devoid of any type of liquid, but there was a rolled-up piece of paper at the bottom instead.

Victor stood there with the bottle in his hand for a second, confused. He then shook his head and grinned, because clearly someone had wanted to send a message in a bottle. Only instead of tossing the bottle into the Atlantic Ocean, they had tossed it _here_ , in the tiniest fountain possible. Victor wondered if it had been a child who had put the bottle in the fountain. He unscrewed the cap and tried to slide the piece of paper out of the bottle, but the paper had unraveled from its tightly rolled-up position and didn’t want to come out.

With his curiosity getting the best of him, Victor grabbed his coffee and took the green bottle with him to work. When he got into his office he dug around his desk drawers for a pair of long nose pliers meant for holding artifacts under a magnifying glass. Once he found the pliers he used them to fish the message out.

Victor didn’t know what he had been expecting, but the message was quite short.

 

_Hello world. Is anyone out there?_

 

The handwriting was neat and precise, not the fumbling letters of a child at all. Victor furrowed his brow at the message and ran his fingers through his hair in confusion. Why would an adult go through the trouble of washing a bottle clean just to send a message asking if anyone was out there?

Eventually he set the bottle and the message that had been in it on the far corner of his desk and got to work. First, Victor needed to check a few references for his dissertation, and then he had a long day of inventory ahead with some of the volunteering high school interns. There had been a loss of data from one of the data banks due to the server short-circuiting, and even though the IT department claimed that all of it had been restored, Victor and two interns still had to go through two storage rooms’ worth of artifacts just to make sure that the information on the server matched the actual objects. _Fun times_ , Victor thought to himself as he made his way toward the storages.

“Okay,” Victor said as he met the interns outside the storage rooms. “We’ll start out from this room here. I’ll give you a stack of papers that has the artifacts listed by the letter-number combination of the shelf and also by the item number. What we need to do here today is to check that the list matches reality – that the item is under the correct number on the list and that the description on the list also matches the artifact. Wear your cotton gloves at all times even though you are _not_ to touch the artifacts themselves, just the pull-out shelves. And I probably don’t need to remind you to be extremely cautious, because everything here is kind of old. Mark the items on your list with a check or something so we know which ones have been inventoried. If something doesn’t match, come tell me. Alright?”

The interns nodded in unison.

One intern was a dark-haired girl whose eyes were a striking shade of blue so deep that it looked like they were purple. The other was a grumbling high school student with blond hair and green eyes who looked like he wouldn’t want to be caught dead in a museum, let alone help out in one. Victor wondered for the hundredth time why they kept him around – he knew from previous experience that the boy had an attitude as well as a foul mouth on him. His parents probably knew somebody on the museum board.

“Okay, Sara, you take this stack of papers, they should be the ones at the very end of the room, start from the shelf labeled G-8 and work your way back toward the door.” Sara took the list with an agreeing hum and set out to the far end of the room. “Yuri, you start from the other end, right from A-1.” Victor handed out the artifact list to the boy.

“And what about you, then? Are you just going to sit and watch?” Yuri spit out, snatching the list from Victor’s extended hand.

“No, I’m going to take these wall-mounted shelves on this wall,” Victor said patiently, pointing to his left. _Because the most fragile artifacts are on those shelves,_ he didn’t continue. The interns got to do inventory on the stuff that wouldn’t fall into pieces if you breathed in its general direction, while Victor himself was going to check the objects that needed to be handled with more care.

The inventory was not hard work, but it was very repetitive and got boring quite soon. Victor quickly found his thoughts wandering, while he mechanically checked the items on his list. _Shelf number? Check. Item number? Check. Item description? Check._

He thought about the message in the bottle that was currently residing on his desk in the basement office slash supply closet. Why would anyone put a message in a bottle into a fountain? Perhaps it was some kind of a modern art project, or a creative writing project? Victor smiled at the three cracked vase pieces he was currently examining. _Item description? Check._ Well, whatever the reasoning behind the message in the bottle was, there had been a question in the note. And it would be rude not to answer, right?

The inventory went as well as expected. The lists were all in order, so the only thing that was _not_ in order was Yuri, moaning and complaining about everything Victor told him to do.

After work that day, Victor left the museum and dropped a bright green glass bottle into the fountain as he walked past it, with a new message rolled inside the bottle.

 

_Hello you. I am here. How is it going?_

 

~

 

Victor didn’t work on Sundays, but he usually made his way to the museum anyway. On Sundays, he could work on his dissertation and didn’t need to assist any of the curators – mainly because the curators didn’t work on Sundays either.

He saw the bright green bottle from a distance, bobbing up and down in the fountain. Victor had to find a long twig so he could reach the bottle from the center where it had gotten stuck in a loop around the center pillar of the fountain.

The note inside was not the one he had left on the previous day. The new piece of paper was larger than the one he had used, and this time there was a rubber band around the rolled-up paper to prevent it from unrolling inside the bottle. Victor went to sit on the bench between the two trees and slid the message out of the bottle.

He bent over to read the scribbled note.

 

_Hello, stranger._

_What made you pick up this bottle? Was it the color? I bet it was the color. I thought it would get noticed. But if you don’t like it, I can swap the bottle. I have a blue bottle, and a purple one. Whatever you like, stranger!_

_What’s your path in life, stranger? Are you a student, working somewhere, jobless, homeless? Tell me all about you. (But not your name, because we don’t know if someone else is going to beat me to the bottle next time, right?) What happened in your life to bring you to this point, this situation? Why are you walking past the fountain?_

_Do you ever feel lonely here in the middle of the city? I sometimes wish I was back home. The city is like an ant hill, full of life, but what’s a single ant in an equation that big? We are all dispensable, no one would even notice if we vanished. Besides, people rarely notice anything around them. I bet hundreds of people walked past the fountain without noticing this bottle, brightly colored as it is. But then you came along, and you noticed. I salute your keen eye, stranger._

_But I digress. Tell me an interesting fact about you, stranger. Something you haven’t told many people. I’ll tell you something about me in exchange._

_Until next time, stranger!_

 

Victor stared at the long, rambling message. He absently pushed his bangs off to the side, the silver hair covering his eyes every now and then as the slight wind gushed around him. He folded the note and pushed it into his pocket, continuing his walk across the street and into the museum with the bottle in hand. He tried to get some work done, but found himself unable to concentrate on anything, so he mostly spent his time around the break room, drinking one coffee after another and browsing social media. Eventually Victor gave up on trying to get anything done and messaged Chris to meet him at their usual place.

The late afternoon found Victor in the corner coffee shop two blocks from his apartment. He was on his sixth coffee of the day, which didn’t really do wonders for his concentration skills. His gaze wandered from the framed picture on the wall to the espresso machine behind the counter to the window and back to the framed picture. His fingers tapped the tabletop without any kind of rhythm or grace.

Across the table Chris was looking at him, amusement gleaming in his eyes. “Perhaps I shouldn’t have let you order more coffee,” Chris said with a wink.

Victor flipped him off in all friendship. “Shut up. Although I do think my blood is about half caffeine at this point.”

“ _’Now I am become coffee, the destroyer of attention spans’_ ,” Chris quoted dramatically.

“Did you just compare coffee to nuclear bombs?” Victor asked, rolling his eyes.

Chris shrugged. “Well, if you drink enough coffee, there are going to be nuclear explosions in your toilet before long.”

Victor swatted Chris’s arm across the table. “You’re disgusting.”

Chris shrugged again and grinned nonchalantly like Victor was just stating a fact.

Victor had known Chris since he was a junior in college and Chris was a freshman. They had kept running into each other at parties and Chris had kept trying to hit on Victor at every one of them. He still did that every now and then when he was drunk, but it was probably more of a force of habit now than Chris _actually_ wanting to get into Victor’s pants.

“Anyway, what’s up with you these days?” Chris asked, twirling his straw wrapper in his fingers.

Victor shrugged and groaned. “Dissertations this, dissertation that. Oh, and trying to tolerate uppity interns at work.”

“Aww, you can’t handle a couple of teenagers volunteering at the museum?” Chris batted his lashes at Victor. “That’s adorable. I can imagine you babysitting them, all _Uncle Victor_.”

“Ngggh.” Victor buried his face in his palms, then dragged his fingers dramatically down his face, looking up at Chris. “Most of them are _fine_ , there’s just this one kid who is like the size of a _hamster_ but packs up more attitude than an entire high school class of angsty teenagers.” Victor grimaced.

His thoughts went from that annoying kid Yuri to the museum, then to his dissertation, and from that to the bottle he now remembered he had left on his desk upon heading to the coffee shop. “Shit. I left the bottle at work.”

“What, do you have a bottle of rum there or something?” Chris laughed.

“I _wish_.” Victor tossed the idea around his head for a few seconds and then figured he might as well tell Chris about the messages in the bottle. “See, there’s that fountain on the corner from across the museum, you know the place, right?”

Chris wrinkled his brow. “I think so?”

“The one that’s like right across the street from the museum, there’s this pathetic little park with a bench and like two trees.” Victor’s finger skated across the tabletop as he tried to make illustrative lines to clarify the location. “Here, if the sugar bowl is the museum and the street is here, and here is the tiny park…”

“Oh, yeah! I know the place.” Chris’s confusion melted into a smile as he nodded.

“So I found a bottle in the fountain yesterday, and there was a message in it.”

Chris laughed, disbelieving. “What? Why would someone put a message into a bottle and toss it into a _fountain_? Shouldn’t you throw it in the ocean, I mean that’s kind of the point of a message in a bottle, right?”

“I know, right?” Victor said. “So I wrote a reply to the message, and then this morning, there was another one!”

“What was the first message?” Chris asked.

Victor pursed his lips. “I don’t remember the exact words, but something like, _Hello world, is someone there?_ or something along those lines. So I wrote back, _Hello you, I am here, what’s up?_ Well, not in those exact words, but still.”

“And you got another reply?” Chris confirmed. “What did it say?”

“It was a really long rambling text about people not noticing their surroundings and congratulating me for noticing the bottle and the message in it.” Victor waved his hand to indicate that the rambling went on and on. “I don’t know, something about it made me think it might be some kind of an art project. Or creative writing perhaps.”

“So essentially you’re messaging a teenage girl who’s taking a creative writing course in high school,” Chris nodded his head thoughtfully. “ _Nice_.”

Victor hadn’t even thought about that. “Shit, I hope it’s not a teenage girl, or I’m gonna get prosecuted or something for replying.”

“Well, do you hope it’s a teenage boy, then?” Chris teased.

“Eww, _Chris_. No, I do not hope it’s a _teenager_ of any kind!” Victor rolled his eyes. “Although that thought process of yours reveals more about you than it does about me.”

“Eh, I prefer them legal. Less hassle,” Chris laughed.

“I’ve said it before, I am saying it again: Christophe Giacometti, you are disgusting!”

“But oh so lovable.” Chris blew a kiss at Victor.

“Anyway. I left the bottle at work, and on that note, I also have no idea what to write in reply.” The idea that the receiving participant might be anyone suddenly felt scary, especially now that Chris had brought up the age factor. Victor didn’t want to tell _anything_ about himself if the person on the receiving end was a teenage girl or something. That’s how you got in trouble and possibly prosecuted.

Back home Victor spread the note open on his kitchen table, straightening the corners that had crumpled in his pocket. He was still slightly hyped up on caffeine, his mind racing in every direction at once.

What did he know about the person who wrote this rambling message?

Victor read over the text again. There were no hints as to whether the writer was male, female or something else.

His eyes skimmed over the words, then he blinked and backtracked a few sentences.

_I sometimes wish I was back home._

The sentence might hint that the writer was a college student who had left home to study in the city. It could also mean that the writer’s family had moved here, which didn’t really tell much about the age of the person behind the message. But then again, a reference to _back home_ seemed to indicate that there still was a home for the person to return to, so that would mean they had left their family behind. Which again pointed in the direction of a college student.

Victor felt like a regular Sherlock after deducing this from just one sentence. Chris would probably have laughed at him had he been here.

Victor tore a page from a notebook and stared at it for the longest time. What could he possibly write that was be appropriate for anyone who happened upon the bottle? Because it was entirely possible that the person behind this message wouldn’t be the one to see Victor’s message. It could be _anyone_. The thought was simultaneously scary and exhilarating.

Finally, Victor pressed the tip of his pen onto the paper.

 

_~~Hello,~~ _

_~~I am~~ _

_~~Hi,~~ _

_~~It was interesting~~ _

 

He tossed at least five drafts into the trashcan before he finally came up with something tolerable.

 

_Hello, there._

_I have noticed it is distressing to write with the thought in mind that it can be anyone who happens upon the message. Literally anyone._

_I noticed the bottle because I have started collecting trash from the fountain on my way to work People keep tossing their garbage in the fountain. (Disgusting, right?) Only this time it wasn’t trash, it was something else. As for the color of the bottle, I don’t really care. Whatever you prefer._

 

Victor stopped writing, lifting the pen from the paper. He didn’t know how to reply to the mysterious writer’s questions without giving too much of himself out. The thought was constantly swirling in the back of his mind, that the message might not find its intended target. It was difficult to write to a faceless _anyone_. What could he possibly tell about himself that didn’t reveal too much? For a moment, the tip of his pen hovered over the paper, and then he wrote:

 

_I realize I haven’t answered all your questions, but maybe next time._

_As for something about myself that many people don’t know: I’m gay. I don’t make a point of hiding it but I don’t really flaunt it either. I’ve never had a reason to. So what about you? You promised to tell me something about you in return._

_Until next time._

 

Victor told himself that it didn’t matter who found the message, because nobody was going to know it was from _him_. That was the beauty of this process in a way. He didn’t know who stumbled upon his message and in turn they didn’t know who the message was from. He rolled the piece of paper up and tied a piece of red gift wrapping ribbon around the rolled-up sheet, because he didn’t have rubber bands at home.

On Monday, he went to the museum and put the message into the bottle to be delivered during lunch break or on his way home.

Wouldn’t it be weird if he happened to the fountain at the exact same time as the Writer?

Victor had taken to calling the secretive author _Writer_ , because he had to call them something, right? Come to think of it, perhaps he had even passed Writer in the tiny park, or waited with them for the light to turn green at the crosswalk between the fountain and the museum. There was no way of knowing, no face to attach to the note in the bottle.

On his way home, Victor waited until there were no people around the fountain, and then dropped the bottle into the water. The heavy glass sunk almost to the bottom before popping back up because of the air inside the bottle. Victor estimated the water was at least a foot deep. There were a few pennies down on the bottom, as well as some foliage from the trees, having sunk to the bottom over time. He watched as the green bottle floated beneath the spray of water and rolled to its side, staying there in the cross-current of the small bowl. Victor stared at the bottle for a moment, deep in thought, and then continued his walk home.

His apartment on the fourth floor of the building was tiny – one room and a kitchenette with a fridge and a tabletop stove. Victor didn’t do much cooking, though. On most days he brought home takeaway from the nearby deli, and the contents of his fridge were sparse at best. There were some canned foods in the cupboard for emergencies, but Victor was fairly sure they were already past their expiration date at this point.

The one room he had was a long, narrow space with two windows on one wall. In the three-foot space between the windows was Victor’s tiny kitchen table, mostly filled with papers concerning his research. The windows of his apartment had a _lovely_ view of a boring red brick wall across a narrow alley. When he opened a window and sat on the sill, though, he could see a small sliver of the busy street at the end of the alley. People walking, cars driving, bicycles zooming past. The immense sense of _life_ in the city.

As a result of thinking that he might run into the mysterious Writer at any time, Victor had started paying more attention to his surroundings. Generally, he was really bad at noticing anything that was going on around him, so now he made an effort to _notice_ his surroundings. And what he saw was somewhat eye-opening.

There were a _lot_ of people in the city. Of course Victor had _known_ that there were a lot of people in the city, but now he was suddenly acutely aware of it. He watched the masses of people crossing the streets at intersections, watched the lines of people in coffee shops, the groups of people flocking together like birds. Writer had called people ants in an anthill, going about their lives that in the end were just as insignificant as an ant’s. Victor was not sure he agreed with the sentiment. Everyone around him had a story of their own, and it wasn’t his place to say what was or wasn’t important to someone.

Victor amused himself by inventing life stories for the people he saw around the city. That tired-looking mother pushing a double stroller with two toddlers in it, she was actually a secret agent for the CIA and on the lookout for the Italian mafia. The elderly man nodding on the bench in a park in his threadbare clothing looked like he had lived a rough life. Victor came up with a new life story for him; a nicer one. Victor imagined the old man in his youth, getting married, having children with his wife and sending the children off to their own lives. Victor looked at the bent figure on the bench wistfully and for a moment his thoughts flew back home.

Victor had been living in the city for almost nine years now. He had moved here from St. Petersburg to go to college and he was still on that same path. Victor hadn’t looked back once, because he didn’t feel like he had left anything behind. Some people said that you couldn’t choose your relatives, only your friends and lovers, but Victor begged to disagree. In the end, everyone made their own family, chose the people they wanted to keep close. Granted, he hadn’t exactly found his family yet, but he would. Some day.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: I have no idea what actually happens in museums, so I'm sorry if the descriptions are wildly inaccurate!
> 
> More characters will appear in later chapters.


	2. Writer and Stranger

It was weird how disappointed he got when the bottle wasn’t there the next morning. Or well, he was excited that Writer apparently had retrieved the bottle, but there was no reply. Victor pondered the possibility that someone else had taken the bottle. Or perhaps the city’s park maintenance crew had finally remembered this place still existed and had cleaned the bottle into the trash.

Victor was _not_ going to dig the nearby trashcan to check if the bottle was there. He had _some_ dignity.

Victor went to work with a hollow feeling in his chest.

On that day, he was helping the curator carefully pack some artifacts that had been borrowed from a museum in Prague for an exhibition that had been going on for a couple of months. Now they needed to send the objects back to Prague, and the packing was an arduous job. Of course everything had to be individually wrapped in soft cotton strips and then placed in wooden crates with styrofoam peanuts to protect the items inside. If there was something Victor hated, it was those damn styrofoam pieces. They were static as all hell and clung onto his clothes or anything else they came in contact with.

Exiting the museum building after work that day, Victor found a packaging peanut in his hair and another in the pocket of his cardigan.

He crossed the street over to the park and stopped dead on his tracks when he saw a bottle in happily floating around the fountain.

Only this time, the bottle was blue.

Victor rushed to the fountain and leaned over the edge. He grabbed the bottle, not caring that his sleeve grazed the surface of the water in the process. A few passers-by gave him an odd look, but Victor brushed them off. Inside the blue bottle there was a note tied up into a neat roll.

Victor retreated to the lonely bench and sat down to open the bottle. The note slid out easily, and Victor set the bottle next to him on the bench before removing the red ribbon around the message. Victor blinked a few times at the ribbon, because it was the same that he has used. The paper was different, though; without lines on it.

 

_Hello, Stranger._

_Do you like the blue one? I think it’s my personal favorite as far as colors go._

_You are right; it does feel odd to send your thoughts via this method. Because like you said, anyone could pick up the bottle. However, I feel that for me it’s the most convenient way right now. Hiding behind anonymity can be a blessing. And it helps that I don’t know who you are either. I can send my thoughts more freely, not having any prejudice about the person who is going to read them._

_You walk past the fountain to get to work, I walk past the fountain for other reasons. Isn’t it weird to think we may have passed each other in that very spot countless times, only neither of us looked up at the same time. We all tend to live inside out own little bubble, but we usually don’t see past the edges of our bubbles, transparent as they are. I feel sending messages out to the world in this manner is me poking the edges of my bubble, reaching out to someone else’s bubble. In this case that’s you._

_Thank you for sharing something about yourself. I know I promised to do the same in exchange, but now that the time is here I find it increasingly difficult. I have so much to say, but the words refuse to come out of my pen._

_Instead, perhaps I can relay to you something that indirectly reveals something about me: a character in a novel who I can relate to. I find that the novels and characters you cherish often reveal a lot about your personality. Have you read the trilogy called Memory, Sorrow and Thorn? The main character seems so lost and unsure about himself a lot of the time, but he grows out of it over the span of the story. I guess my story is not quite finished yet, then…_

_What about you? Who do you find particularly inspiring in literature?_

_Until next time, Stranger._

 

Victor looked up from the paper. The trees above him rustled softly in the slight breeze and the fountain kept on bubbling, but somehow it seemed as if everything had stilled for a moment. Victor pulled out his phone and googled the series Writer had talked about. He had not read it, but he was going to.

While walking back home Victor didn’t observe his surroundings. Instead, his mind was focused on the question Writer had asked. What character did he find inspiring or could relate to? It had been a long time since Victor read anything else besides scientific articles and handbooks concerning his dissertation. The idea of diving into a trilogy of fantasy novels seemed refreshing for a change.

Finally, on the stairs outside his apartment building, an idea came to him. Victor bounced up to the fourth floor and hastily unlocked his apartment door. Once inside, he went straight to the bookshelf and started browsing the titles. One of these days he was going to have to arrange the books in some kind of rational order. Finally, Victor found what he had been looking for. He slid the tattered paperback out of the shelf, the Cyrillic alphabet of the cover familiar even after a long period of not having read anything in Russian.

_Элизабет Питерс: Крокодил на песке_

Victor thumbed through the book, smiling as his eyes caught glimpses of familiar scenes in the story. He had been fourteen when he first read this novel, and he remembered the bullying in school when he had been discovered reading it, because apparently it was a _girly_ book. Victor hadn’t cared back then and he didn’t care now, because the main character was _badass_.

This time writing a reply was easier, because Victor felt like he had something to say.

 

_Hello, Writer._

_Do you mind if I call you Writer? Because I had to call you something in my internal monologue, and it was the first thing that popped into my head. Thank you for the trilogy suggestion; I have not read it but I’ll be sure to check it out!_

_As for a character in literature whom I find interesting, I’d have to say Amelia Peabody. She has such a no-nonsense attitude and is generally just a wonderful character. I’m not like her, but I wish I was more like her._

_We’re all stories in the end. Neither of our stories is finished, so it would make sense that you feel like you haven’t reached your full potential. I am not like Amelia Peabody, but perhaps my character development will make me as badass some day. For now, I just keep on surviving, like the rest of the ants in the anthill._

_Until next time._

_PS. I do like the blue color._

_PPS. I just realized I quoted Doctor Who there. Sorry not sorry._

 

Victor found himself wondering what kind of a person Writer was. A lot of the messages were cryptic, like Writer wanted to say something but they couldn’t quite write it out directly. But it felt like the person behind the messages needed some encouragement. Victor re-read what he had written in his reply, and decided it was sufficiently encouraging.

Victor dropped the bottle off the next morning on his way to work, and when he returned late in the afternoon, the bottle was gone.

 

~

 

It continued like this for almost two weeks; Writer would send rambling notes and Victor replied. The back-and-forth messaging was almost daily by now.

 

_You said you have internal monologue about me?_ Writer wrote after Victor’s reply. _What does it say?_

 

_It keeps wondering who you are, and it tries to imagine what you look like. Most of my internal monologue tries to attach a face to the writing_ , Victor replied.

 

To which Writer teasingly replied: _Ah, but why would a piece of writing need a face? There is a lot more in the words than behind them._

 

Writer was annoyingly good at dodging questions about their persona.

Victor’s mention of Doctor Who prompted a discussion about TV series and movies they found interesting, and then the conversation turned to more in depth issues, and one day Victor found himself writing,

 

_This exchange has made me think about my life, though. Like what really matters in life? What do you think? I’ve concluded that to me, money is not a motivating factor beyond survival, but I feel like I haven’t exactly found my motivation yet. What would yours be, if you had to name one?_

 

His pen stopped, tip hovering above the paper. Victor looked up at the cork board hanging between the living room windows, on the wall above his kitchen table. He had methodically tacked all Writer’s messages on the board in chronological order. Around the notes Victor had added post-it notes with his own scribbled notes. Some were ideas he could discuss in his next message, others were notions about what Writer perhaps had meant with their cryptic words.

Victor realized he was talking to this faceless person about topics he didn’t really even discuss with his friends. Sure, he and Chris could hold hours-long conversations about life, universe and everything, but writing his thoughts down made Victor _think_ more about what he was about to say. Having a conversation in written form was entirely different than having one face to face.

Victor looked at the board again, and suddenly the absurdity of everything dawned on him. Here he was, writing messages to a person he knew almost nothing about. Victor’s notice board only lacked the distinct red strings connecting his written notes to be identical to every detective TV series ever. Only in those series they were usually looking for a criminal, not an anonymous person sending messages via a fountain.

Victor’s eyes dropped back to the sheet of paper in front of him. What did matter to him in life?

An excellent question. One he didn’t have an answer for.

At work, Victor strived to make progress on his dissertation. His advisor kept sending him emails, and Victor mostly kept ignoring them. He helped the curators to set up an exhibition for pieces the museum had borrowed from Moscow, and Victor found himself in the role of a translator and an interpreter when an artifact they had asked for was not within the shipment they received. It was a mess, because the museum representatives in Moscow told him that the item had been sent along with the others, and there was definitely a chill in the tone of the Russian curator when he implied that it was somehow Victor’s fault that the item was missing.

“Блять,” Victor cursed after the phone call had disconnected.

“Tsk tsk! Didn’t your mom teach you to not curse?”

Victor looked up and saw Yuri in the doorway. The blond youth flipped his hair out of his eyes to cast a glare at Victor.

It took a moment for Victor to connect the dots. “Ah, русский?” It made sense, what with Yuri’s last name being Plisetsky.

Yuri simply raised one eyebrow. “Obviously I am Russian. My grandfather raised me, and he still doesn’t speak much English even though we’ve lived here almost all my life.”

Victor waited for a moment, but it became obvious that Yuri was going to stand there holding the doorframe up until the end of ages unless Victor said something. “Yuri, why are you here?” he asked.

“The curator sent me to ask if you needed help with anything.” The look on Yuri’s face said that he wanted nothing less in this world than to help Victor.

Victor chuckled half to himself. “Unless you want to verbally kick a museum curator’s ass in Russian, then I don’t think I have anything for you.”

“I _can_ if you want me to,” Yuri said challengingly, and Victor didn’t doubt it for a second. But he also thought that letting Yuri do the talking would only make matters worse. After all, he wanted to _maintain_ their relationship with the Russian museum, not burn everything to the ground.

“Thanks, but no thanks,” Victor said with a grin.

“Suit yourself,” Yuri shrugged and was gone from the doorway before Victor had a chance to say anything more. Victor didn’t really care if Yuri went on to do anything helpful, because there were more pressing matters to attend to. Like calling the company that had shipped the crates over from Europe. _Again_. Victor wasn’t looking forward to that phone call, because the last one had been about as useful as using a hairdryer to melt the permafrost in Siberia.

Over the next two days, there were a lot of phone calls from both sides until the artifact was _finally_ found in the shipping area of the cargo company. The crate had been misplaced during shipment, and once both parties were informed that it had been an error of the shipping company, Victor finally felt the atmosphere lighten up. For a moment there it had been like the cold war all over again.

He found himself wanting to write about the mishap in his next message to Writer, but this was too personal, too revealing to leave out in the open like that.

Victor started noticing that he was getting frustrated by the uncertain method of delivery when it came to the messages he and Writer shared. He could never be sure if it had been Writer who had picked up his latest message until he got a reply, and even then, he just wanted to learn more about the mysterious person who had come up with this weirdly enthralling messaging system.

While Writer wrote a lot of their thoughts and hopes on the notes, they still promptly refused any questions directed at their personal life or persona.

_Please tell me more about you. I’m dying to know_ , Victor wrote on one of his messages, only to have it neatly ignored in the reply. Writer never said _no_ , but somehow Victor never got an answer.

His frustration culminated when on one occasion, the bottle hadn’t come back for three days.

Victor had left the bottle in the fountain on Wednesday morning and it was gone in the evening when he paced past the fountain. However, there was no reply for three days, during which Victor bit his nails to pieces and drank too much coffee and destroyed his sleeping routine.

He hadn’t realized how much the messaging back and forth had affected him, until Chris pointed it out when he came over on Sunday with takeaway.

“You look like shit,” Chris observed when Victor opened the door.

“Hello to you too,” said Victor pointedly, but he let Chris in anyway.

“What’s up?” Chris asked when he unloaded the takeaway boxes from the bags and started opening them on the table. His gaze wandered over to the board hanging on the wall. It was full of notes and post-its. Chris stared at the board and then at Victor. “Whoaaa, _dude_.”

“What?” Victor asked, trying to sound nonchalant.

“I remember you said something on the phone the other day about how you continued the whole message-in-a-bottle thing, but _this_ …” Chris trailed off, waving his hand at the board covered in notes.

Looking at it from that perspective, Victor guessed it all looked maybe a little _excessive_. There were dozens of post-its of different colors around the notes he had gotten from Writer. The board was barely visible beneath all the paper stacked on it.

“Well, I haven’t had much else to do lately,” Victor said dismissively.

Chris quirked an eyebrow. “Like, say, a dissertation?”

Victor groaned. “I seem to have run into a dead end with that. This particular dead end is called _lack of motivation_.”

“Mhmm.” Chris offered Victor a plate. “Rice?”

Victor took the offered plate and the box of rice. “Thanks. So anyway, I was thinking about life the other day. It’s like, our entire adult life is first studying, then working, maybe getting married, buying a house… It’s like this predetermined path that everyone just walks blindly on.” Victor spooned rice on his plate and looked a Chris. “Do you get what I mean?”

“Aren’t you a bit young to have a mid-life crisis?” Chris teased. “But yeah, I understand what you mean.”

“This whole message-in-a-bottle thing has been like a breath of fresh air in my otherwise dull existence.” Victor reached the for the Kung Pao Chicken box.

“How poetic,” Chris chuckled.

Victor guessed it was probably Writer’s influence on him. His use of words in his writing had changed due to the messages they had sent back and forth, so it made sense that it would creep into Victor’s spoken language as well.

“Pass me the chicken, please?” Chris reached his hand for the box. “So, if this is the breath of fresh air and whatnot, why are you moping at home?” Chris asked.

“It’s been three days without an answer. I’m starting to think I’ve scared Writer away.”

“Writer?” Chris questioned.

“I have to call the person behind the messages _something_ , don’t I? They won’t tell me anything about their life. It’s just… thoughts and stuff that they send. And they’ve taken to calling me _Stranger_ , so I guess we’re even on the nicknaming part.”

“Uh-huh. You want chili sauce, Stranger?” Chris offered a small container toward Victor.

“No thanks.”

“Do you have any idea about this person’s age or sex or anything?” Chris asked, setting the chili sauce on the table. “Maybe we should eat on the couch? We can’t eat here; this table is too full of your research stuff. Let’s just leave the containers here for seconds.”

They sat down on the couch, and Victor munched on a piece of chicken thoughtfully before answering Chris’s question. “So, about Writer… Well, I _think_ they’re a college student. In some of their messages they’ve referenced things that point in that direction, like them having left home to move here.”

“Mhmm,” Chris mumbled through his food.

“And as for the sex part… I don’t know, but I have this _feeling_ that it’s a man.” Victor shrugged and inserted some rice into his mouth.

“As in, you _wish_ it was a man, because you’re totally in love with this mystery person,” Chris said with a teasing laugh.

“I am not,” Victor muttered with a huff.

“So totally are,” Chris told him. “What if it turns out that the person behind the messages is an 80-year-old grandma?”

“Then I’d expect to finally _have_ a grandma, and an awesome one, too. I bet she’d make the best chocolate chip cookies.” Victor didn’t want to think about sending messages to a grandma, though. He was pretty sure he would have a hunch if this person was an old woman. “Besides, their handwriting is kind of messy. Nothing like the neat cursive of a grandma.”

“Not all grandmas write in neat cursive,” Chris pointed out, and Victor realized the other man was teasing him.

“You’re impossible,” Victor said. Chris blew him a kiss.

For a moment, the only sound was them digging into their takeaway portions.

“So, you said this… _Writer_ hasn’t replied to you in three days?” Chris asked, wiping his mouth with a napkin. Victor nodded. “Well, three days isn’t that long. Maybe they went home for the weekend, if it is a college student like you think.”

Victor shrugged. Somehow he felt that Writer would have left a note saying they wouldn’t be around.

“Or perhaps someone else took the bottle?” Chris offered when he saw that Victor hesitated.

That’s what Victor was afraid of. It had been easy to forget that anyone could pick up the bottle from the fountain. It had been going so well for such a long time that he had been convinced people were just as blind as Writer said they were. No one had ever seemed to pay any attention to the bottle floating in the water of the fountain before. But that didn’t mean that the messaging system they had was safe from outsiders.

“Well, have you checked if the bottle is there? Today, I mean.”

“No.” Victor had decided to keep a day off from the museum. He felt like he _lived_ there these days, and the walls were beginning to inch closer every day.

“Say, after we’re done eating, we need to burn off the calories somehow, right? Might as well walk over to the park and check the fountain,” Chris suggested casually.

Chris was a good friend. He could behave like an annoying prick at times, but inside he was fiercely loyal and wanted the best for Victor. Victor smiled at Chris, who had started shoveling food into his mouth at an alarming pace. “Chill, man, it’s not like we’re in a hurry,” Victor said.

“But this is the love story of the century, we don’t wanna miss out. Vitya and an 80-year-old grandma, sending each other mail via a bottle in the fountain!”

“Shut up.”

“Seriously, I’d watch that shit on Broadway. It would be _epic_.”

“I said shut _up_.”

After eating they shoved the rest of the food into Victor’s fridge and set out. Chris looked Victor from head to toe before they stepped out of the door and straightened Victor’s collar. Victor swatted his hand away. “What are you doing?”

“You never know, true love could be waiting on the edge of the fountain, you want to look nice for grandma, right?” Chris winked and grinned.

“One of these days I’m going to strangle you in your sleep,” Victor threatened.

Chris only grinned wider.

There was no grandma sitting on the edge of the fountain when they got there.

There was, however, a bottle in the fountain. The green one.

Victor rushed over to the fountain and picked up the bottle. It was dripping water on his shoes, but Victor ignored it and unceremoniously unscrewed the cap off the bottle. He slid the rolled up note out of the bottle and set the bottle on the edge of the fountain.

Chris watched from a distance as Victor hastily read the note. It was very short.

 

_Hey,_

_Where did you disappear?_

 

There was a sinking feeling in Victor’s stomach. Writer hadn’t gotten the blue bottle. Someone else had taken the bottle with his reply in it.

“Someone else took it,” Victor remarked to Chris. “The blue bottle with my reply in it. Writer never got it.”

“Well, you should reply with an explanation of that, then,” Chris said and produced a small notebook and a pen from his jacket pocket. “Here.”

“Thanks,” Victor said and sat down on the edge next to the bottle. In quick strokes he wrote,

 

_Hey,_

_Someone must have stolen the bottle, I left it here on Wednesday. I was worried you had disappeared when I didn’t hear from you._

_I’m sorry for the bottle. I know it was your favorite color._

_I will rewrite my previous message for the next time._

_Hope I hear from you soon, Writer._

_-Stranger_

_PS. We should come up with a more reliable method of communication, because I don’t want to lose this connection again._

 

Victor ripped the page from the notebook and rolled it up, tying it with the piece of string that had been around Writer’s short note. He then pushed the note into the bottle and screwed the cap on. Victor carefully lowered the bottle into the fountain and watched it float under the spray of water in the center, where it got stuck on a loop under the falling water.

Victor got up and handed the notebook and pen back to Chris.

“Those are yours,” Chris said, refusing the offered items. “I took them from your table while you were in the bathroom. I figured we might need them.”

Victor rolled his eyes. “Christophe Giacometti, you didn’t tell me you were psychic.”

“One of my many talents,” Chris said humbly. “Now that that’s settled, how about some pool and a beer or two? There’s that one pub like two blocks from here…”

One of Chris’s many talents was that he took life at face value. He didn’t question Victor’s sanity even in a situation when most people would have, and he helped without ever asking anything in return.

Victor nudged Chris’s shoulder as they were walking toward the pub. “Have I ever told you how lucky I am to have you as a friend?”

“No, but feel free to continue praising me,” Chris said.

“I can still strangle you while you sleep you know,” Victor said. “I can sing your praise posthumously just as well.”

“Make sure they put this on my tombstone,” Chris countered, spreading his hands in a gesture of grandiose. “ _Here lies Christophe Giacometti, he was the best of friends and had an amazing ass_.”

“ _Died of a really bad case of egotism_ ,” Victor continued. “There will be flowers and champagne in your honor. It will be beautiful.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Элизабет Питерс: Крокодил на песке = Elizabeth Peters: Crocodile on the sandbank  
> Блять = fuck (has other uses but here used as a curse word)  
> русский = Russian (person / language)
> 
> \--  
> Thanks to [victuurimaker](http://victuurimaker.tumblr.com/) and [merkitty](https://merkitty.tumblr.com/) for beta work.


	3. words on paper, for better or for worse

On Monday morning, the fountain was empty aside from a lonely candy wrapper bobbing sadly up and down in the water. Victor absently picked up the candy wrapper and carried it to the trashcan on his way work.

They were busy setting up the exhibition that consisted of the artifacts shipped from Russia and another set that had been acquired from Warsaw. Victor printed out artifact descriptions for the display cases of the Russian items. He had been appointed to this because the original descriptions were in Russian, so he was the obvious choice for the task. Too bad that Yuri had school during the week, otherwise Victor could have delegated the translating task to him.

After he was done with the translations and the printed-out descriptions were handed over to the curator in charge for checking, Victor returned to his office in the basement and tried to work on his dissertation for a bit. Motivation still eluded him, but he managed to get a few more lines written into the document. Then he promptly deleted a few lines from another part of the text, because they were ridiculous. So in the end, he didn’t really advance at all, but Victor told himself that proofreading was part of the process, right? Quality over quantity.

When Victor was out of the building, it was getting so late that the sun was beginning to set. He walked across the intersection and nearly bumped into a person crossing to the other side. Victor didn’t really register the man he almost toppled over, because from here he could see that the bottle was in the fountain, so he muttered a quick apology and rushed the rest of the way. Victor pulled the bottle out of the water and sat on the edge of the fountain to read the message. It was weird how much he had missed reading Writer’s rambling notes.

 

_Hi Stranger,_

_It was a relief to hear from you. I was afraid you’d gotten bored of exchanging messages with me._

_That’s my dark secret I guess. I’m afraid that people will get bored of me and leave. That’s why I don’t want to reveal myself to you. But we all have our own demons to battle, right? Some are just hidden deeper than others…_

_What do you propose as a reliable method of communication? I won’t give out my phone number if that’s what you’re asking. And while I could create a new email address that doesn’t reveal my personal information, for me that just strikes as dull and ‘the easy way out’. Emails never give you that same kind of thrill as getting a handwritten message. Or maybe that’s just me._

_It’s too bad about the blue bottle, but I can always get a new one. What did you write in your previous message, the one that was stolen? Please rewrite it for me, I am curious as to what thoughts you have unleashed into the world for the thief to read._

_Either way, it was good to hear from you again. For a moment there I was worried…_

_Until next time._

_W._

 

Writer had been worried that _Victor_ was getting bored, while Victor had been worried about the same thing on his end. And all of this because of some idiot who had taken the bottle with Victor’s message. Victor kind of wanted to strangle the unknown thief for causing all this worry.

Victor found it adorable that Writer had chosen to abbreviate their pen name to its initial letter. It somehow made the whole thing more intimate, even though it wasn’t Writer’s real name. Victor brushed his finger across the single letter at the bottom, smiling.

A thought crossed his mind. Victor suddenly looked up from the note and into the darkening night.

Chris had been right, hadn’t he?

Victor was crushing on someone he knew next to nothing about; a phantom person who shared their thoughts and fears with Victor but nothing more.

Victor was crushing on _words on paper_.

He wasn’t sure how it had happened. It had probably crept on him while he wasn’t looking or something, but now he realized that he waited for Writer’s replies like they were love letters. He cherished all the words in each message, meticulously pinned the pieces of paper onto his cork board and thought about what he could say to make his reply worthy of Writer’s attention.

The thought of never finding out who Writer was filled Victor with a hollow sense of agony.

He had to come up with a more reliable system for their messages. Obviously, Writer was opposed to electronic forms of messaging, so it had to be something else.

They couldn’t write traditional mail, because that required an address.

_Unless…_

Victor pulled his phone out of his pocket so fast he almost dropped it into the fountain.

Within minutes he had found what he was looking for: a PO Box location nearby. And one that instead of keys, used number combination locks. _Perfect._

Victor grabbed the bottle and started homeward, his step light and his mind clear. He knew what needed to be done. He needed to set up a PO Box that only him and Writer would know the combination to. Then nobody would be able to intercept their messages.

 

~

 

The next day at the museum was torture. Victor’s mind was anywhere but in the work he was doing, and he could hardly wait until his workday ended. After work Victor marched into the nearest post office and took a seat among the long line of customers.

Victor sat impatiently in the chair and glanced at the time. It was two minutes more than it had been the last time he checked his phone. He shifted his weight in the uncomfortable seat and bounced his left foot against the floor impatiently. The line seemed to go on forever and of course when he was next in line, there was a problem at the counter and the customer in front of him spent _ages_ there. And naturally it was the only service desk open at this hour. Finally, it was his turn, and Victor jumped up and rushed to the window that separated him from the bored-looking postal worker.

Setting up a PO Box was nowhere near as easy as Victor had thought. Before going to the post office he’d had to fill in an online form and pay for the first month in advance, then print the form and his receipt. Next, at the post office he needed to prove his identity with two different identifications. Victor thought the lady behind the counter spent ages staring at his American driver’s license, because although it was DMV issued and valid, apparently his last name and the Russian passport that was his other form of ID were cause for concern. _I’m not a Russian spy!_ Victor wanted to shout when the post office lady spent almost a minute scrutinizing his driver’s license and comparing it to Victor’s Russian passport. _I do not intend to use this PO Box for anything illegal!_

Eventually, he was given a box at the location he asked for and a combination for the lock. Victor walked out of the post office feeling like he’d just won a battle. Who knew opening a PO Box had such crazy amounts of red tape.

He stopped outside the post office to scribble the number of the box and the combination into his notebook to be added to his message that was going into the bottle next. Then Victor frowned and ripped the paper into pieces – it wouldn’t do to give the information all at once, because someone else might steal the bottle once again. He discarded the pieces into a nearby trashcan. Victor took out the note he had written the previous night to be tossed into the fountain today.

 

_Hello Writer,_

_I can’t remember the exact words that I wrote in my message that was stolen, but I remember thanking you for making me open my eyes. Before we started this exchange of messages, I feel like I didn’t notice my surroundings. I was so holed up in my own head, I could walk home from work and never notice a single person I met on the way. I once noticed a new Starbucks along the way, but when I pointed it out a friend they said it had been there for six months already. I walk past that location on daily basis. I guess that tells a story of how well I paid attention to my surroundings._

_But now I’ve started noticing things happening around me. People around me. All the life around me. And whereas you said to you it’s like ants in an anthill, for me all this new visual information is fascinating. I guess my senses had been dulled by time and boredom, but now I feel like I can see again, thanks to you._

_I find it kind of funny that while you were worrying about me getting bored, I was doing the exact same thing. Worrying, I mean. But I guess that goes to show that this exchange means something for the both of us. So please, do not worry. I am not bored, and I am not going anywhere._

_Yours,_

_S._

_PS. I took the liberty of opening a PO Box. It’s located on the corner of Canton and Avenue and the door can be accessed with the code 30104A. Once you confirm that you have received this, I will give you the rest of the information. Hope this works for you._

 

After adding the postscript, Victor rolled the message tightly and tied it with a blue ribbon he’d bought just for this purpose. He could at least give Writer a blue ribbon, even if the bottle wasn’t blue.

Victor walked back to the fountain and tossed in the bottle. Then he took a longer way home, stopping by at the PO Box location to check what it was like.

It was pretty much as he had imagined: an unassuming door with a number pad on it, leading to a square space with PO Boxes of various sizes embedded into the walls on three sides. Victor walked around the room to locate the one that was his. _Theirs_? It was a weird thought, sharing a PO Box with someone he hadn’t even met.

Victor opened the lock of the box using the combination he had gotten from the post office lady, and the lock slid open with a quiet clicking noise. The box was the smallest kind, big enough to fit letter-sized envelopes lying flat and about four inches tall. Victor eyed the small cube of space thoughtfully. This definitely gave more leeway in terms of what he could send to Writer since he was no longer restricted by what could fit through a bottleneck. Victor immediately thought about postcards and small packages that could fit into the small space. He closed the box with a smile on his lips and left, heading home.

One the way he once again went into the deli near his apartment and ordered a chicken wrap to go. He had meant to learn to cook, but somehow life always got in the way and he never had time.

While the deli worker was making the wrap, Victor’s eyes wandered over to the pastries on display in the glass case. There were croissants, donuts of various sizes with or without glaze and covered in sprinkles. There were also cupcakes with different colors of frosting on top, and Victor’s eyes fixed on a cupcake that had a neat twirl of bright blue frosting, with darker blue stars sprinkled on top. It looked simultaneously delicious and kind of revolting, so Victor _had_ to buy it.

When Victor got home, he sat at his small table that was piled with papers and magazines, ate his chicken wrap and stared at the bright blue cupcake in its plastic case, sitting at the center of the table. The color reminded him of Writer.

 

~

 

The next morning, Victor smiled as he noticed that the bottle was gone from the fountain.

He smiled even wider when it _was_ there again as he got off work.

Victor sat on the lonely bench to read the note.

 

_Hello, Stranger._

_I can do the PO Box but on one condition: you can access it in the afternoon between 12PM and 12AM and I will access it from 12AM to 12PM. I want to keep the anonymity, so I don’t want us to run into each other by accident. I hope you understand._

_Yours,_

_W._

 

Victor stared at the message. The tone was weird, somehow _off_. He was sure it was Writer, though, because who else would call him _Stranger_ and sign the message off with a capital W?

He felt a slight sting in in his stomach at the clipped tone of Writer’s note. He wondered what made Writer so afraid of meeting the actual, real life Victor. Victor sighed, writing a quick reply with the details of the PO Box, then slipping the message into the bottle, possibly for the last time. In a way it was a relief because of how uncertain this method of delivery was, but still, there was a certain kind of wistfulness to letting go of the bottle for the last time.

Victor watched the bottle float around the center pillar of the fountain and vanish to the other side. He turned to walk home, deep in thought.

The next morning the bottle was still there, but there was something, a _hunch_ , that made Victor check it anyway.

His message was gone. Instead, inside the bottle there was a small note, unrolled against the round edge of the bottle, text displayed outward through the glass.

 

_Check the box._

 

Victor’s stomach made a fluttery somersault at the words. He took the bottle with the message still inside to work with him and set it on the corner of his desk, the three words facing him.

During his lunch break, Victor made a dash for it. He almost ran to the PO Box location, his fingers fumbling on the number pad on the door. Finally, he got the combination right and stepped inside the quiet space, heading straight for their box in the corner.

Victor put in the number combination and the box opened with a click.

Victor looked inside, blinked once and then burst out laughing.

Writer had shoved a bottle into the cramped space.

A _purple_ bottle. The item barely fit into the box, so it had been lodged in there diagonally, reaching from one back corner to the opposite corner at the front.

Victor shook his head at the bottle and then took it out of the box, the deep purple color looking like it didn’t belong in this world of gray anonymous boxes mounted in the walls. The bottle felt like a private joke. Hell, it _was_ a private joke. Victor stopped for a second to think about the fact that he shared private jokes with a faceless, nameless person.

The idea was thrilling somehow.

Victor glanced at the time on his phone and realized he had to head back to the museum if he still wanted to eat lunch. There was small corner store on the way back, and Victor hastily purchased a few granola bars and ready-made sandwich. He munched on the sandwich on the way back and had just arrived at the door to his office right when his phone started vibrating in his pocket.

“Hello?” Victor answered, phone hanging precariously between his ear and his shoulder as he tried to open the door and hold the remains of his sandwich at the same time.

“ _Are you back from your lunch break?_ ” curator Celestino Cialdini’s voice was tight.

“I just came back, do you need me?” Victor replied, the key finally turning in the lock so he could go in and free his hands from the sandwich. He set the sandwich along with his briefcase on his desk and finally managed to grab a decent hold of the phone that was threatening to fall any second.

“ _Yes, there’s a slight problem with that Feltsman guy again, and whenever I try to speak English to him he just yells at me in Russian_ —“ the curator explained with a huff. “ _If you can stop by in my office, I’ll explain the situation to you?_ ”

Victor sighed. Yakov Feltsman was one of the curators in the Russian museum they had borrowed artifacts from. “I’ll be right there,” he said.

“ _Thanks_ ,” curator Cialdini said.

Victor had to leave the purple bottle in his briefcase, unopened, and it bugged him to no end. He had thought he’d have time to read Writer’s message before he was needed again, but such was life.

Victor walked up two flights of stairs and knocked on Celestino Cialdini’s door. Once he went in, he was tasked with explaining to curator Yakov Feltsman that one of the artifacts that had been sent from Moscow had been slightly damaged during transportation.

Victor was endlessly glad that technology didn’t allow people to strangle each other over the phone, because Yakov Feltsman sounded like he might have done just that to Victor, given the chance. Celestino stood by and listened as Victor explained the situation calmly in Russian, even though Celestino himself didn’t speak a word of Russian.

“Thank you, Victor,” Celestino said once Victor ended the phone call. “I wanted to explain it to him myself but he just kept speaking Russian. I hope he wasn’t too rude to you.”

“Yeah, it was no problem,” said Victor. “He wasn’t very rude, just a tad… _blunt_ , but I guess that’s his style.” Victor didn’t dare repeat curator Feltsman’s every word to Celestino, especially the part about Celestino and everyone in this museum being incompetent morons. Feltsman definitely had a very Russian temperament.

After the phone call Victor’s thoughts immediately flew downstairs and into his office where the purple bottle was waiting in his room. “Do you think I can go finish my lunch now?” he asked.

“Of course, you can take half an hour. We don’t want our favorite Russian interpreter to die of starvation, alright?” Celestino laughed and slammed a friendly hand on Victor’s shoulder and then practically shoved him out of the door. “Come see me when you have eaten, we still have to figure out the layout within the display cases and I need your help with going over the floor plan for the exhibition.”

“Alright,” Victor replied. He turned and bounced down the stairs as fast as possible while still trying to maintain the illusion that he was a professional and an adult. He probably failed miserably on both accounts.

When he got to his office, Victor went directly to his briefcase and pulled out the purple bottle. He took the cap off and slid out a rolled-up note with a rubber band around the middle. Victor placed the purple bottle next to the green one on the corner of his desk. Settling in his chair, Victor removed the rubber band and unrolled the paper. He absently pushed a piece of the remaining sandwich into his mouth while he read Writer’s words.

 

_Hello, Stranger._

_As you can see, I wasn’t quite done with the message in a bottle theme. (Although now you hold two of my bottles so I might want at least one of them back at some point.)_

_Setting up a PO Box was a clever move on your part. It brings reliability to the messaging. Reliability is good, but somehow I feel like a certain excitement factor has been denied from us; not knowing whether the message would reach the other. But this is better. I hate to admit my weaknesses but I definitely prefer reliable over exciting. How extraordinarily boring of me._

_I apologize if I seemed rude in my latest message about the PO Box. That day was… not a good one. I didn’t mean to pour it on you, but that short note was all I could muster at that time. And I hope you understand my continuing wish for anonymity. It’s easier that way._

_I am intrigued that such a small thing as sending messages to a strange person has managed to open your eyes to your surroundings. In a way that means you have started looking outside your bubble. I would be interested in reading what you have noticed, aside from new Starbucks locations popping up like mushrooms after rain._

_Lately I have been thinking about my childhood. I grew up in a place much smaller than this city, and I’ve been trying to remember what I thought and felt back then. What I wanted to become, where I wanted to be. My mother used to say to me that one should use their heart as a compass to guide them, but recently it’s been difficult to find my compass. I feel like sending these letters out to you has helped, though._

_Do you remember your childhood dreams? Where would you be right now if you had walked the path you wanted to walk when you were young?_

_Yours,_

_W._

 

Victor’s mind was running in a hundred different directions for the rest of the workday. What had Writer meant with it not being a good day a few days back? Where was Writer from? And why did they constantly question their own importance and intrigue? Victor didn’t understand how someone who wrote such elaborate thoughts about life and their emotions could think they were _boring_. Victor often felt like it was a struggle to match the intricateness of Writer’s thoughts, felt like he had to reach a whole new level of expressing himself to be even remotely as interesting as Writer was.

After his work for the day was done, Victor sat down at his desk to write a reply.

 

_Hello Writer,_

_I am sorry if something happened to make you feel bad the other day. I hope you feel better._

_As for what I have noticed now that I’m looking beyond my bubble, I’ve invented this game to amuse myself: I come up with background stories for people I see, and the more imaginative, the better. I came up with a whole thriller novel about a mother of two toddlers who was a CIA agent on the lookout for the Italian mob. There were plot twists and everything._

_Nowadays I also try to figure out what people think. I used to just sit and browse social media on my phone when I was somewhere by myself, but now I mostly watch people and their behavior. It’s fascinating in a way, the way everyone repeats the same social norms and constructs. Sometimes I wonder what the world would be like if there weren’t any social constructs. A very different place, I imagine._

_As a child, I remember wondering about the past. And not just the past of my parents and grandparents, but the past of humankind. Like, what did the Romans actually do in their spare time? They couldn’t all just have crazy, gluttonous parties and hang out at spas all the time like the elementary school history books made it seem. I guess that’s why I ended up studying archeology._

 

Victor looked up from the paper. He realized this was bordering on personal information, but he _wanted_ to share this with Writer. Now that he could be sure his message would reach the right person, Victor felt like he could say a lot more. He decided to leave the text as it was. It was about time that Writer knew something concrete about him. He wanted Writer to know him better, know what Victor had been doing with his life. But he also wanted to know about Writer’s life, and that was something that Writer kept very hidden. They had dropped some hints along the way, but Victor still didn’t know _anything_ about his mysterious pen pal besides the fact that Writer had moved here from a small town and that they were probably a college student.

Instead of any real life information about Writer, Victor knew what Writer thought about people, about life, about books, movies, popular culture and even about the British royal family for some reason. Victor wasn’t sure how that topic had come up in their letters, but it had. Perhaps it was because of Doctor Who?

Well, that was irrelevant. The relevant fact was that Victor felt like he _knew_ this person, only without knowing the physical manifestation of the person.

He continued writing.

 

_So I guess I am on the path I wanted to be on when I was little. On some days it just feels that perhaps the path could be a bit easier to walk on, but it’s usually just boredom or tiredness speaking. I love what I do, even if I don’t always have the motivation to prove it._

_You will get your bottle back sometime later, but I couldn’t make it fit in the box at the same time as the small present I’m leaving with this letter. I hope you like it. At least the color is nice, right? I know you like blue._

_I wanted to ask you, could you possibly tell me something about yourself? I feel like I already know you to an extent because of everything we have discussed, but still I feel like I don’t know you. Does that make any sense? You don’t have to reveal anything you don’t want to, of course, but honestly, you could probably say you’re an ax murderer and that wouldn’t be enough to scare me off. Don’t be afraid. I’m not going anywhere. I’d just love to get to know you._

_Yours,_

_S._

 

Victor folded the note in half – no need to roll it up anymore – and put it between the pages of his notebook for transportation to the PO Box. He gathered his stuff from the desk and switched off the lights.

Victor greeted the guard in the security booth on his way out and stepped out into the warm May afternoon. It was that refreshing time of the year when days were already warm but the nights still cool. Standing in the daylight sunshine felt burning hot after a while but when walking in the shadow of the buildings one could still feel the lingering coolness of winter from the earth beneath the pavement stones.

On his way to the PO Box Victor took a longer way to go into the small bakery he had checked would still be open. He stopped by at the bakery and luckily they had what he needed, so he didn’t have to go hunting elsewhere.

When Victor got to the door of the PO Box location, he thumbed in the code and stepped in. There was another person inside, checking their mail, and Victor lingered in the doorway, pretending to dig his briefcase for something while the businessman in his suit closed his box and cleared out.

When he was alone, Victor went to his own box and opened it. He pulled the folded note from between his notebook’s pages and set it on the bottom of the box. The note looked weird after getting used to notes rolled up into paper cylinders. Victor then opened the paper bag he’d gotten from the bakery and cautiously pulled out a see-through plastic container. In the container sat a small cupcake with light blue frosting twirled on top. It wasn’t the same thing he’d gotten from his regular deli, the blue on this cupcake was more subtle and delicate. The one from his nearby deli had been kind of stale-tasting and very artificial. Victor figured this one would have to be a lot better, being bought from an actual bakery and all.

He set the see-through container on top of the folded note, so the cupcake would be the first thing Writer saw when they opened the box.

Staring at the cupcake inside the PO Box, Victor realized that it didn’t matter to him who Writer was anymore. Well, it _did_ matter in a way because he wanted to satisfy his curiosity, but other than that it didn’t matter. He already knew the _person_ behind the messages, and that person was beautiful on the inside. An intriguing, interesting and observant person; a person who challenged Victor’s views and made him think about his life and the life happening all around him.

Victor closed the box door and walked home, deep in thought. He wanted to meet Writer, but he was fairly sure that any suggestion about a meeting would be met with a roundabout denial or just get ignored entirely.

Victor called Chris on his way home. He explained the latest development – the PO Box – and then moaned, “What do I do, Chris? I want to meet this person. I don’t even care anymore if they’re that 80-year-old grandma. I mean, if they were I could just sit with them in coffee shops and watch people and talk about stuff and order way too many cinnamon rolls and it would be _awesome_. What do I dooo?”

“ _Hmm_ ,” said Chris. “ _I’m probably the last person you want to ask advice from in a situation where subtlety is required_.”

“Probably,” Victor agreed. “But you’re the only one who’s even remotely familiar with the situation, so I could spare myself the trouble of explaining this from the beginning to someone else.”

“ _Ah, taking the easy way, I see. Well, since this person doesn’t seem to want to do a face-to-face meet-up I wouldn’t try to push it too much. I mean, you might end up scaring them away_.”

“Right,” Victor said. “But if I don’t keep saying it, it will never happen. I mean… ugh, what if they just don’t want to meet me? What if they think I’m not that interesting?”

Chris cleared his throat. “ _I would just like to point out that they went through all the trouble of keeping the messaging system up and even asking after you when the bottle was taken by someone else_.” Chris sounded annoyingly rational. But he was also right.

“You’re right,” Victor said.

“ _Of course I’m right_.”

“And so modest,” Victor huffed, rolling his eyes.

“ _Modesty is for the weak_ ,” Chris declared. “ _Why be modest when you can be awesome, right?_ ”

“So, as much as I’d like to discuss your awesomeness, I still don’t know what to do about my situation.” Victor sighed as he stopped at an intersection to wait for a green light.

“ _Well, you could try hinting that you’d love to meet. And try not to be pushy. I know it’s hard for you, but try anyway_.” Chris said patiently.

“I am not pushy!” Victor exclaimed. Someone next to him waiting for the light to turn green side-glanced at Victor. Victor ignored them. “I’m not pushy,” he repeated more quietly.

“ _Uh-huh_.” Chris sounded unimpressed. “ _Remember, I went to college with you. I was with you most of your junior and senior year, and let me tell you: you can be a bit pushy when it comes to people_.”

“How am I pushy?” Victor challenged.

“ _Well, remember that one time when you wanted to get to know this guy in your art history class?_ ”

“That was one time!”

“ _You scared him away by constantly messaging him and basically ambushing him in the hallways to talk about ancient art pieces_.”

“I’m guessing that him being straight also had something to do with him deflecting my advances,” Victor said defensively.

“ _That, or he was just taking the class for credit and didn’t give a shit about art history, but either way, you were pushy_.” Chris was silent for a while. “ _So, if your mysterious Writer is a guy, and also straight, then what?_ ” he then asked.

Victor bit his lip and walked across the street on green light. “Well,” he said after a momentary silence. “I guess then I’ll have a new friend.”

It would be infinitely better than ceasing contact altogether.

 

~

 

As Victor had predicted, Writer neatly sidestepped his questions about their personal life. Victor felt contradicted because he was simultaneously happy that he’d gotten a note, but he was also annoyed at Writer’s obvious avoidance tactics.

 

_Hello, Stranger._

_Thank you for the cupcake. I really liked the frosting. I think it was blueberry cheesecake or something? Whatever it was, it was delicious._

_I am feeling better now, thanks for your concern. It is not so much that something happened but more like everything happened all at once. It happens. I get past it._

_Reading about your observations about people was interesting. I often find myself wondering what people think in some situations. It’s fascinating to me because I sometimes feel like my thought patterns are somewhat different than other people’s._

_They say that humans have up to 70,000 thoughts per day. I don’t know if that’s true, but if it is, that means that most of the thoughts we have are so fleeting that we never even register them before they are gone. Imagine if you were suddenly aware of all the thoughts that cross your mind. Would it be a blessing or a curse?_

_I’m inclined to think it would be a curse, because that many thoughts over the course of day… it would probably sound like madness inside my head. Perhaps that’s what’s going on with some schizophrenics? It’s not that they hear ‘other’ voices in their heads, but it’s that they are **aware** of all the thoughts they have? Every. Single. One._

_I would probably go mad pretty quickly._

_It’s interesting that you brought up ancient Rome. My interests are somewhat parallel to yours, which makes sense, seeing as we get along so well on paper._

_So you have brought me a cupcake with blue frosting. What should I bring you in return? What’s your favorite color?_

_Yours,_

_W._

_PS. I am not an ax murderer._

 

Victor stood outside the PO Box with Writer’s letter in his hands. He snorted softly at the last line. Apparently that was all he was going to get out of Writer for now. Well, that and the fact that Writer’s interests were ‘somewhat parallel’ to Victor’s, whatever that meant.

Victor folded the note and put it between the pages of his notebook. He suddenly had an idea.

Victor walked home hurriedly and dropped his jacket onto the couch upon entering the apartment. He opened his briefcase and pulled out his notebook and Writer’s message along with it. He then marched over to the table, sat down and tore a new page from the notebook. Victor rummaged through his piles of paper and finally found a stub of a pencil that was lying on the table beneath all the junk.

He was going to write a list of all the tidbits of information he had about Writer and see what the whole picture looked like. It was like a puzzle, where he was still missing most of the pieces, but at least he had _some_ pieces he could try and add together.

Victor wrote:

  * _they are from a smaller town_
  * _they are possibly a college student (and not an ax murderer)_
  * _they like blue_
  * _they like fantasy books_
  * _they are interested in (possibly study?) something like archeology?_
  * _they have mixed feelings about people_
  * _they prefer tea to coffee_
  * _they think they’re not interesting and are afraid that people will leave them_
  * _they—_



As the list grew longer, it started to form a pattern. All these small pieces of information painted a somewhat vague picture of a person who was so much _more_ than they imagined themselves to be. Victor felt slightly sad looking at it. He wanted to search through the millions of people in the city to find this one person, just to give them the biggest hug of the century and tell them that they were _amazing_.

So Victor decided to tell them that.

He sat there for a long time, writing his response to Writer’s letter.

He wrote openly about himself, he wrote about his life and his studies and his work at the museum. Victor felt like he was tearing his ribcage open and baring his beating heart, but it felt like the only thing he could do. Somewhere in the back of his mind, a tiny voice that sounded a lot like Chris was telling him to _slow the hell down_ , he was being too _pushy_ , he was going to _scare_ Writer away, _don’t you remember that guy from art history_ …?

Victor ignored the nagging voice and wrote on.

He told Writer about all the things he had noticed in Writer’s letters, about all the things he thought made Writer an amazing person and worth knowing, about all the things that made Writer so intriguing. He wrote pages and pages and finally, looking at the wonderful mess of a rambling text he had created, he lifted the pen to the last sheet of paper and signed it off boldly,

 

_Yours,_

_Victor_

 

There. He had done it. He had signed the letter to Writer with his own name.

Victor’s heart was beating like he’d just run a marathon.

He looked at the mess of papers in front of him – five full pages of his ramblings – and then stacked them neatly into a pile and promptly tossed it into the paper waste basket that was sitting under the table.

Two minutes and a lot of nervous pacing later Victor kneeled next to the table and pulled the letter out of the paper waste basket.

When he walked up to the PO Box late that night, however, the letter he carried wasn’t the one with his real name on it. After careful thought Victor had stashed that letter in an envelope on his table, and written a new one that wasn’t quite as _pushy_.

When he dropped the new note in the box, it felt like he was somehow cheating Writer from a letter they deserved. Instead, Writer got a more general letter that detailed Victor’s favorite color – burgundy – and an agreement that it was probably a good idea that he didn’t register every single thought in his head, because that would certainly have been highway to madness in a matter of minutes.

The less pushy letter did contain mentions of Victor wanting to get to know Writer better, though. He even mentioned his bout of madness, the whirlwind of thoughts about his real life persona currently sitting on top of his table at home. Victor figured that this was somewhat clever – this way, he didn’t come off as overly pushy but if Writer wanted to know more, all they needed to do was ask.

And ask they did.

It took a few days for the next answer to come, and Victor was getting more nervous every day. The request came in a form that looked almost like an apology, because Writer was simultaneously apologizing about not being able to reveal much of themselves and asking to see what Victor had written about himself. The note that expressed Writer’s curiosity was left in the box alongside a wrapped up present. When Victor tore the brown paper, inside he found a brand new, letter-sized notebook with dark burgundy wood covers. On the front cover, there was a single Egyptian hieroglyph – the Eye of Horus – engraved into the wood. _For protection_ , said Writer in their letter. _I hope you like it_.

The next day Victor walked over to the PO Box location and stood outside for a good five minutes, debating with himself. Eventually he pushed the numbers on the pad and let himself inside. Then he spent another five minutes standing in front of the box itself, envelope in hand, swallowing nervously every now and then.

“Well, you asked for this,” Victor said to the empty box. He hesitated just for a fraction of a second before lowering the envelope with his bleeding heart in it onto the floor of the box. He slammed the door shut.

This was it. For better or for worse.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you have any questions, ask me on my [tumblr](https://worldofcopperwings.tumblr.com/) or in the comments below. All feedback is much appreaciated!
> 
> Thanks to [merkitty](https://merkitty.tumblr.com/) and [victuurimaker](http://victuurimaker.tumblr.com/) for helping me out with this.


	4. latitude and longitude

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “What, so they left you like a message encrypted within a message?” Chris looked at Victor incredulously the next day when Victor met him at their regular coffee shop. “What do they think this is, the Da Vinci Code?”

Four days.

Victor counted them again and again with his fingers as he stood in front of the open PO Box. Four days he had come here every afternoon during his lunch break and found the box empty.

The nagging voice inside his head that still sounded suspiciously like Chris was telling him that the letter had been _too much too soon_.

“They asked for it,” Victor said loudly to the nagging voice.

_When has anyone in the history of mankind actually known what they want?_ the voice continued. _What did you think was going to happen? They’d just run into your arms and you’d go frolicking into the sunset together?_

Victor sighed and closed the door of the letterbox. He walked back to the museum and stepped into his cramped office. The place seemed somehow hollow and empty despite the fact that it was stacked full of paper.

His eyes landed on the two bottles still sitting on the far corner of his desk; the purple one, empty, and the green one, with the message _check the box_ staring at Victor through the glass, mocking.

He had checked the box. Every day, religiously, he had checked the box, and _nothing_.

Victor hid out in his room for as long as he could, but he knew that he’d have to show his face in the exhibition room soon enough. The exhibition glass display cases were all in place, now they only needed to put the artifacts and item descriptions in them. Celestino expected him to be there to supervise because the curator himself was in a conference in Washington D.C. until next week. Victor was grateful to Celestino for placing so much trust and responsibility on him, but right now Victor just kind of wanted to curl up in a corner under a big, soft blanket and never come out.

There was a demanding knock on the door. Victor startled and called out, “Come in.”

The door swung open and Yuri Plisetsky stood there, glaring at Victor.

“ _They want you upstairs_ ,” Yuri said in Russian, chewing on a piece of gum.

“Хорошо.” Victor stared at the youth thoughtfully for a moment. Then he asked, “Yuri, why are you here?”

Yuri glared at him harder. “I told you already, they want you upstairs; the exhibition room is ready for set-up. I came to tell you that!”

“No, I mean… Why are you _here_ , volunteering at the museum at all?” Victor tilted his head and looked at the angry blond curiously.

The question took Yuri off-guard. “I—my grandfather told me to volunteer somewhere, it’s good for college applications.” The answer sounded uncertain. “And he knew someone who works here, so…”

“But if you hate it so much, why don’t you volunteer somewhere else?”

Yuri looked confused. “But… I don’t hate it?”

Victor’s eyes widened. “Well, you do a magnificent job faking it, then.”

Yuri glared again. “Well. Sometimes it’s stupid, you know. But the stuff is interesting. I like history.”

Victor would never have guessed. “Alright. Well, do you want to help me set up the exhibition?”

“But they said we’re not allowed touch any of the Russian artifacts because the Russian curator—“

“Well, _they_ are not here today, and _I’m_ asking you to help me. Do you want to?” Victor smiled.

Yuri only nodded, eyes wide.

They walked up the stairs and into the exhibition hall that would be closed off from visitors for another week before the opening. Victor put the pieces into the display cases according to the list he had with him, and Yuri added number plates next to the items and attached the item description lists either on the cases themselves or on the walls beside them. Victor noticed that for once, Yuri didn’t look like he hated everything that happened to be within a ten-foot radius of him. Victor spent some time explaining the history behind some of the pieces, and Yuri actually _listened_ and even asked questions. _Huh_ , Victor thought to himself. _Perhaps the angry Russian Punk isn’t so bad after all_.

Keeping Yuri around as a student of sorts was a welcome distraction to Victor, something else to think about besides the Writer remaining ominously absent.

When they were done for the day, Yuri stopped by the door of the exhibition hall. “Um, thanks,” he mumbled, looking at his shoes, and Victor wanted to make fun of him _so badly_ , but he felt like that would destroy the fragile connection he’d established with Yuri.

“You’re welcome. Anytime you want a lecture about ancient ceramics, I’m your guy!” Victor grinned.

Yuri just rolled his eyes and then he was off with a nonchalant wave of his hand.

Victor watched him disappear through the front doors, and then he turned and used his key to access the back staircase that led down to the basement.

Victor stayed in the office until nightfall, pouring his frustration into his dissertation for a change. He managed to go through the pottery pieces he’d gotten from the museum’s archives and after putting them back into the boxes he sorted through a pile of articles from the 70s, most of them detailing the discovery of said pottery pieces. He didn’t get much done in writing, but when Victor finally left the museum he felt like he had accomplished something that day. Not only had he discovered that Yuri Plisetsky had a human side to him, but he had also advanced his own PhD by some baby steps at least.

Victor walked home, taking a longer route that took him to one of the main streets instead of his usual, more peaceful way home. He told himself that he needed some change of scenery, a new perspective on things. It wasn’t that he wanted to avoid the fountain at all costs. Nope. Not at all.

At home, Victor heated some leftovers from the fridge and sat laconically on the couch, staring at the TV and not seeing anything that was happening on whatever channel that happened to be on when he turned the flatscreen on. He wished Writer would at least send him _something_ , even a note just to say that they didn’t wish to continue their letter exchange with Victor. Not knowing was the worst kind of torture.

Victor was suddenly struck with a new line of thought. What if something had happened to Writer? It was a big city, anything could happen. Car accidents, fires and mugging incidents were a regular occurrence in a big city. What if Writer had been hit by a car, or got mugged and was now lying in a hospital somewhere? Nobody would know that there was someone waiting for a message.

Well, even if that was the case, there was absolutely nothing Victor could do. He felt so helpless, not knowing anything and not being able to do anything.

The next afternoon, walking to the PO Box felt like wading through murky waters. Every step was agonizingly slow and the world seemed to grow dimmer as he approached his destination. Victor realized he was being extremely melodramatic, and the voice of his conscience told him the same. Victor had no idea why his conscience kept talking in Chris’s voice, though. It was kind of unnerving.

Victor pulled the box open without expecting anything, because he couldn’t get disappointed if he didn’t expect anything, right?

When his eyes met the small piece of paper, sitting folded in the middle of the box floor, the relief and joy that flushed over him on that instant was so immense that Victor had to grab a hold of the door. The piece of paper was small, unassuming, but Victor’s hand was trembling as he reached out to take it.

He unfolded the piece of paper and read it.

He read it once over, then again more slowly.

It was just three lines of text. One written in Latin alphabet as per usual, and the other a string of numbers that didn’t make any sense. The last line was a single letter, a capital W marking Writer’s signature.

Victor read the lines for the third time. The numbers had to be some kind of code. But what did it mean?

 

~

 

“What, so they left you like a message encrypted within a message?” Chris looked at Victor incredulously the next day when Victor met him at their regular coffee shop. “What do they think this is, the Da Vinci Code?”

Victor just shrugged.

Chris eyed Victor from head to toe. “Well, if this is Da Vinci Code, though, I must say you make a lot more fetching lead than Tom Hanks.”

Victor rolled his eyes. “Funny.”

“No, I’m serious,” Chris deadpanned. Then his expression changed and he looked at Victor sternly. “But this is like fifty shades of fucked up right now, because they’re playing you, and I can see that it’s hurting you, and I kind of want to punch this mystery person in the face right now.”

“I’m going to ignore the fact that you just referenced Fifty Shades of Grey,” Victor said. “And you can ignore the fact that I _knew_ where that reference was from. Besides, they say here they are going to explain everything,” Victor said.

Chris snatched the note from Victor’s hand.

“Seriously? _‘I am so sorry for the long wait. I can explain everything. 0601 1800; 40.725939, -73.982054. W.’_. What is this supposed to mean?”

“Well, I figured it has to be a time and location. Like, they want to explain something, but only give me a string of numbers? It has to be a time and location, right?”

“Right.” Chris tilted his head. “I don’t get it.”

“The first part is the date: June 1st, which is in three days. The next four digits are the time, 18:00. Or 6 PM. And the part in that comes last—“

“The location,” Chris nodded. “Latitude and longitude.”

Victor looked at him disbelievingly.

“What? I was awake during geometry classes in school!” Chris looked offended.

“I think you mean geography,” Victor corrected.

Chris waved his hand dismissively. “Yeah, whatever.”

“So I looked it up on google,” Victor continued. “It’s in the middle of a park.”

Chris stared at Victor. “You’re not going, right? Victor, _this is how you get yourself murdered_.”

“They said they were not an ax murderer,” Victor said, smiling like it was an inside joke. It kind of was.

“Well, they might be a— a, I don’t know, a _spoon murderer_ for all you know,” Chris said, spreading his hands.

Victor reached out and took the note back. “How do you murder someone with a _spoon_?”

“ _I’m_ not the spoon murderer, how would I know?” Chris said. “Seriously, do not go meet this creep. First they stay away for god knows how long—“

“Five days.”

“—Fine, five days, and then they send you a message to meet them in a _park_. That’s just bullshit!”

“Well, it is a public area during daylight,” Victor pointed out. “It’s not like I’m headed to meet them in a cabin in the woods or anything.”

Chris huffed. “Well, I’m going with you.”

“No, you’re not.”

“You need a wingman!” Chris exclaimed.

Victor glared at him. “Fine. You can come, but not into the park. You can stand guard outside the park boundaries if you want.”

“But what if they pull out their spoon and murder you?”

“During daylight hours in a park that’s most likely full of people?” Victor suddenly became aware that there would be other people in the park. How would he know which one of them was Writer?

Chris muttered something under his breath, but eventually agreed that the park probably wasn’t the place where the murder would take place. “Yeah, they’ll wait until they can lure you into a hotel room or something, and then you end up cut in half like the Black Dahlia.”

“Cut in half with a spoon?” Victor quirked one eyebrow at Chris. “That’ll be the day.”

“So, what are you going to do? Waltz up to them and go all, ‘ _hi, so what’s up with you disappearing for five days, scumbag_?’”

“Um, no.” Victor grimaced. “Honestly, I just want to meet them.”

He did. He wanted to meet the person behind those funny, interesting thoughts and uncalled-for insecurities. Victor didn’t dare to say it out loud because he might jinx it, but he was _sure_ that Writer was a guy.

Well, _almost_ sure. Like, 98 percent sure.

And if it was a guy, Victor was going to sweep him off his feet. He could be charming if he wanted to.

Either way, no matter what or who the person meeting him in the park was going to be, the thought of meeting them was exciting. It was a deviance from Victor’s everyday life. It was something completely _new_. He was sure that whatever would happen in three days, it would be amazingly weird. Either in a good way or in a bad way.

 

~

 

Victor had half-expected that the three days would go agonizingly slowly, but the seconds and minutes and hours ticked away at their regular pace. Somehow it was disappointing, because they said that time felt longer for the waiting, and this mundanely regular passing of time did not seem appropriate for the situation at all. He went to the museum every day as usual, helped to add the finishing touches to the exhibition and prepare for the opening festivities. On Saturday, there would be an opening night of the exhibition for invited guests only, before the exhibition was opening to the public the following Monday. Victor was invited to attend on Saturday, but he didn’t have to go unless he wanted to. After all, he was just a research assistant, not an actual curator. _Yet_.

Victor just needed to get this stupid dissertation done. Then he might actually rise from his basement cleaning-supply-closet to something resembling an actual office.

A glance at his dissertation, open on his laptop, told Victor that the dream of an actual office was still quite a distance away.

Every day he still stopped by at the PO Box, to see if there was anything in there. How else was Writer going to inform him if they got sick or something? But the box remained empty, and Victor was relieved but also kind of disappointed when no new notes appeared. He figured he might have to cancel the PO Box soon, because there would be no need for it anymore. Hopefully.

It was Wednesday, the last day of May, when it suddenly struck him that he was going to meet Writer the following day.

After work, Victor pulled his phone out of his pocket and called Chris.

“Should I get a haircut?” Victor said immediately after Chris had picked up.

“ _What?_ ” Chris sounded confused.

“For tomorrow. Should I get my hair cut?”

“ _Dude_.” Chris went from confused to unimpressed in one second flat. “ _This isn’t the next season of the Bachelor, you know.”_

“But I want to look my best—“ _In case it’s a hot guy_ , Victor didn’t continue.

“ _In case it’s a hot guy?_ ” Chris asked innocently.

Damn, Chris was reading his thoughts again.

“Глупый,” Victor muttered under his breath.

“ _I may not speak Russian but I know when you’re calling me names_ ,” Chris stated.

“Well, I can call you stupid in English as well,” Victor said with a smile. He shifted his weight from one foot to the other and grabbed his blazer from the backrest of his office chair. Victor slung the blazer over his shoulder and managed to grab his briefcase while still holding onto his phone. He switched off the lights and locked the door from the outside. “But what do you think? New haircut?”

“ _You do not need to cut your hair, it’s fine_ ,” Chris said patiently.

“Fine. How about a new suit?”

“ _You’re not going to meet a random person in a park wearing a new suit_ ,” Chris said. “ _Nothing screams ‘desperate’ like a new suit in a park_.”

“Sure. What proverb book is that from?” Victor walked through the basement and past the security booth, nodding at the guard on shift. “But should I buy flowers?”

“ _Vitya. Stop. You just go over there, see who and what this person is, that’s it. No haircuts, no new suits, no flowers. It’s **not** a date_.”

Victor sighed as he exited the museum building through the side door. “You’re right.” Chris pulled in a breath and Victor interrupted him before he could say anything, “And _don’t_ say that of course you’re right.”

“ _You’re no fun_ ,” Chris complained. “ _So, tomorrow at six, huh? You know I’m still coming with you_.”

“Yeah, because you don’t want the 80-year-old grandma murdering me with a spoon.” Victor rolled his eyes.

“ _Well, if it’s a grandma maybe it won’t be a spoon. Maybe it’s going to be knitting needles!_ ” Chris sounded delighted.

“You sound way too happy about the prospect of me being murdered,” Victor said mournfully. “Some friend you are.”

“ _By the way, if it’s a hot chick, I call dibs_ ,” Chris said.

“Ugh.” Victor dragged the palm of his hand over his face.

It wasn’t going to be a hot chick or a grandma. It was going to be some beautiful man, and Victor would sweep him off his feet with his witty charm, and they would discuss the world and the universe and everything over hot drinks, and then they would go frolicking into the sunset like in a cliché rom-com. It would be perfect.

“ _You still there?_ ” Chris’s voice shattered Victor’s daydreams.

“Yes,” Victor said as he walked down the street toward the PO Box location. The Writer couldn’t bail on him now, could he? There was a cold feeling in his stomach. Victor agreed to meet Chris before the meeting on the next day. Then he ended the call and accessed the PO Box with the code, possibly for the last time. It didn’t feel as meaningful as tossing the last bottle into the fountain, however. The fountain had been the beginning of everything, the PO Box had been just for convenience.

The box was empty. Victor wasn’t sure if Writer was still checking it, but he tore a page from his notebook anyway, scribbling a few quick words on the paper.

 

_Tomorrow at six, then. Victor._

 

It still felt weird to sign his own name, but he didn’t feel like returning to Stranger either. He didn’t feel like he was a stranger to Writer; he had told more about himself than he perhaps should have, in retrospect. Victor left the note into the box and slammed the door shut. It felt final, like a goodbye.

 

~

 

The first day of June was not off to a good start. The weather forecast had promised light summer showers throughout the day, but there was nothing _light_ about the rain currently pounding Victor’s umbrella as he marched to work, zig-zagging to avoid the puddles gathering on the sidewalks.

His hair was falling flat and splaying across his face, damp, and altogether Victor felt about as attractive as a wet dishrag when he finally got to the museum.

“Mr. Nikiforov,” the security guard called as Victor passed the security booth in the basement, dripping water on the floor. “Curator Cialdini called and asked me to tell you that he wants to see you as soon as you arrive.”

“Okay, thanks,” Victor said and continued to his door. He tossed in his blazer and the dripping wet umbrella and walked upstairs with his briefcase.

“Victor, hello,” Celestino said as Victor walked through the curator’s open door.

“Quite the summer weather, huh?” Victor huffed, trying to push his still-damp hair off his face. He should have gotten that damn haircut.

Celestino laughed. “Indeed. So, I called you in to let you know that there is a reporter coming in around three PM, about the exhibition, The paper he’s with, I can’t recall the name right now but it’s from some college or another. Non-commercial college newspaper, good PR, you know the drill. Anyway, they have been granted an exclusive peek of the exhibition before Saturday so they can publish on Saturday afternoon. Was there anything you need to do in the exhibition hall before we can let the journalist in?”

“Not that I recall, no,” Victor said, swapping his briefcase from one hand to the other. He didn’t know why on earth he had dragged it with him to Celestino’s office. “Everything should be in order.”

“Alright, well, why don’t you show the reporter around when he gets here?” The sentence was in question form but Victor knew he couldn’t really say no.

Victor shrugged. “Yeah. No problem.” Anything to keep intensively avoiding his dissertation.

“Excellent!” Celestino beamed. “He’s going to be in the front lobby at 2:45 or so.”

“Okay.” Victor once more switched his briefcase from one hand to the other. “Was there anything else?”

“No,” Celestino said. “Well, except, excellent work with the exhibition!”

Victor grinned. “Thanks.”

When Victor went to the main lobby at quarter to three, there was a dark-haired, solemn youth standing near the wall close to the ticket booths. He didn’t have a pen behind his ear but Victor guessed he was the journalist from the camera hanging around his neck.

“Hello, you’re from the college newspaper, right?” Victor held out his hand. “Victor Nikiforov.”

The dark-haired young man took the hand and shook it. “Otabek Altin, I’m with the NYU’s student newspaper.”

“Alright. Let’s go straight into the exhibition hall, then.”

They walked around the ropes sectioning off the exhibition hall. Victor pushed aside the heavy curtain that closed off the hall from patrons until Monday, and they walked into the exhibition hall.

Otabek Altin seemed stone-faced most of the tour, although he did ask questions and recorded Victor’s answers on his phone for later reference. Otabek took a lot of pictures. He was bent down to zoom in on an artifact in its glass case when a noise startled both Victor and him.

Victor turned to look toward the curtain to see what the noise was about.

Yuri Plisetsky stood beside the curtain, and the loud thud had been him casually dropping his backpack on the floor beside him. “I just got off from school. Do you need help?” Yuri asked.

“No, I’m just doing an interview for NYU’s student newspaper,” Victor said, nodding his head in Otabek’s direction. The reporter had turned back to photographing the artifacts.

“Oh.” Yuri pulled a pack of gum from his hoodie pocket and unwrapped one, popping it into his mouth. “You want gum?” he asked, mumbling around the chewing gum. He stepped closer, offering the pack in Victor’s direction.

“No thank you,” Victor said, hoping that Yuri would take a hint already. “We’re in the middle of something here.”

Otabek turned to face Yuri again and there was the slightest hint of a grin on his face. “I’ll take a gum, thanks.”

Yuri passed him a wrapped piece of gum, and then pulled his hand back like Otabek’s fingers were snakes trying to bite him. Yuri shuffled his feet and kicked at nonexistent lint on the floor, glancing at the curtains behind him.

“Well. Anyway. I’m gonna go hide from Celestino in Ancient Egypt, then. I don’t want him coming up with extra work for me. You haven’t seen me, alright?” Yuri cast a quick glare at Victor.

Victor rolled his eyes. “Sure, Yuri, whatever.”

Yuri picked up his backpack, turned around and left the room with his right hand raised in a nonchalant wave.

“Sorry about that,” Victor said. “Did you still have questions?”

“Don’t worry about it,” Otabek said. “And I think I’m done here. Although, I think I might stay for a while, see the other sections of the museum if that’s alright? You don’t need to stick around.”

“Sure, go ahead. Make us look good,” Victor joked.

In response, the corners of Otabek’s mouth lifted a fraction of an inch again in an expression that Victor concluded had to be Otabek’s version of a smile.

Victor led Otabek out of the exhibition hall and left him in the staircase. Walking away, Victor glanced back and saw Otabek’s back retreating toward the Ancient Egypt room.

With the interview finished, Victor grabbed his stuff from his office and left the museum in a hurry. It was still pouring rain outside, but up ahead Victor could see a crack in the gray mass of clouds. Perhaps the rain would stop before six?

Showering felt a little stupid, seeing as he was already wet from the rain despite his umbrella, but when Victor got home he showered anyway. After drying his hair, Victor then spent a good fifteen minutes trying to get his hair to look somewhat presentable. The humidity in the air was effectively killing his attempts, though.

Eventually Victor just gave up and let the silver hair flop down around his left eye and sighed annoyedly at his face in the mirror. _Should have gotten that haircut._

Then he spent another fifteen minutes digging into his closet, trying to find clothes that would look good even when soaking wet, because that was a definite possibility. Black jeans, black leather shoes, a burgundy t-shirt and a black blazer. Victor looked at himself in the mirror and sighed. His hair was hanging flat and there was a ghost shadow of stubble on his chin. But there was no time to shave anymore, so this would have to do.

Victor took the subway and had to change trains twice to get to where he needed to be.

Chris met him outside the station. “You’re late,” he observed.

Victor huffed. “Let’s just go. We have to walk like five blocks to get to the park.”

It was still raining, although less than in the morning. Victor held his red umbrella over them both as they walked.

Outside the park, Chris stayed behind, hiding from the rain under the scaffolding that was hugging the wall of the building across the street. “If you see a spoon or knitting needles, _run_!” Chris yelled after him as Victor started walking across the intersection. Victor just waved his hand without looking back.

Victor continued toward the park gates, and he was suddenly very aware of how fast his heart was beating. There was a funny feeling somewhere inside him, like someone was wrenching his insides into skillful knots one by one.

The park was relatively empty because of the weather. It was simultaneously helpful because he might spot Writer more easily, but also scary, because what if Writer really was a crazy murderer?

Victor didn’t actually believe Writer was a murderer, but he couldn’t help his imagination running wild.

Victor was closing in on the spot where the coordinates led, an open area where the path within the park split into three. He could see someone walking their dog under the trees, and a couple hurrying through the park, hand in hand while trying to keep dry under an unfolded newspaper.

Then Victor spotted the umbrella.

It was bright blue, and the person beneath it wasn’t hurrying anywhere. They were standing still under the drip of the raindrops, half turned away from Victor.

Victor slowed down, hesitated. He scrutinized the person, or as much as he could see of the person. The lean body was definitely male, and judging by the clothes not even close to 80 years old.

Victor walked slowly toward the blue umbrella.

Soon, the man under the blue umbrella heard Victor’s footsteps and turned.

Victor looked at the younger man – yeah, definitely younger than himself – and didn’t know what to think.

Dark hair, dark eyes, brown skin. Shorter than Victor, eyes barely at his chin level.

The man smiled and held out a hand. “Victor?”

Victor swallowed and found his voice. “You’re… Writer?” He shook the offered hand.

“Yes! I’m Phichit. Phichit Chulanont. So nice to meet you!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Хорошо = okay; good  
> Глупый = stupid  
> -  
> If you have any questions, ask me on my [tumblr](https://worldofcopperwings.tumblr.com/) or in the comments below. All feedback is much appreaciated!  
> -  
> Thanks to [merkitty](https://merkitty.tumblr.com/) and [victuurimaker](http://victuurimaker.tumblr.com/) for helping me out with this.


	5. expect the unexpected

Victor stood there, taking in the situation and the younger man standing in front of him.

“Phichit,” Victor repeated, testing out the name. “Nice to meet you too.”

“Do you maybe want to go somewhere? Looks like the weather isn’t in our favor,” Phichit grinned. “There’s a coffee shop across the street from the park there, if that’s okay for you?”

“Sure,” Victor said weakly. Phichit wasn’t anything like he had imagined Writer to be.

Phichit led the way, chatting animatedly about the weather and the park around them, and there was also something about hamsters that Victor didn’t quite manage to follow in his state of confusion. He didn’t know what he had expected, but if there had been expectations, this was quite the opposite of those expectations.

When they got to the coffee shop, Victor busied himself with the menu to cover up his state of mind. He didn’t know why, but he felt disappointed. Not that he’d expected the love story of a lifetime, but he felt like they had had a real connection on paper. Apparently, it didn’t transfer all that well off the paper.

Victor woke from his thoughts when Phichit ordered the biggest latte the place had on the menu. Victor muttered his order – regular coffee with cream – and they both paid for their own drinks.

At the table, Phichit continued talking about his hamsters – apparently he had several, and Victor wondered if there had even been a mention of hamsters in the messages. He was pretty sure he’d remember if that was the case.

“So, what do you do for living?” Victor finally asked, trying to avoid being impolite.

“Oh, I’m in college. Trying to decide on a major, actually.” Phichit mixed his latte with a long spoon.

Victor couldn’t help the minuscule smile when his eyes spotted the spoon. Phichit definitely didn’t seem like a murderer of any kind. He was simply too… _nice_.

That was probably what felt wrong, here. Phichit was too nice and too happy.

Something was off about that. Victor watched Phichit take a photo of his latte and then fiddle with his phone. Then Phichit took a selfie with the latte, grinning happily. All in all, Phichit’s behavior didn’t correspond in any way to the deep, dark thoughts conveyed in the messages.

“Are you _really_ Writer?” Victor had to ask. This smiling young man didn’t seem to carry any burdens of the mysterious note sender, and his smile seemed genuinely happy all the time. There was nothing there like the murky depths Victor had read from Writer’s notes at times.

Phichit’s smile fell just a little. “Aww, shuck! I thought I could pretend long enough to see if you’re any good, but I guess not. I’m not very good at pretending, and I guess this just goes to show _how_ bad I really am… Good thing I didn’t want to become an actor—“

“So you’re _not_ Writer?” Victor asked, interrupting Phichit’s rambling. Suddenly there was this huge, twisting sense of hope inside him.

“No. Sorry.” Phichit grinned. “What gave me away?”

“Well… you’re very… _happy_?” Victor struggled to express himself in a way to that wouldn’t be offensive. “Also, you ordered the biggest latte in town even though Writer has told me they prefer tea over coffee any day.”

“He,” Phichit said off-handedly. “He prefers tea.”

“So…” Victor tilted his head and looked at Phichit curiously. “Who is _he_ and why are you here in his stead?”

“He is Yuuri. My best friend.”

“Yuri?” Victor asked, confused. Like the tiny Russian with an Attitude?

“No, it’s pronounced with a longer u sound, Yuuri,” Phichit advised.

“Yuuri,” Victor tried again.

“Yeah, like that.” Phichit smiled and sipped his latte happily.

“Where is that from? The name?” Victor asked.

“Yuuri is Japanese.”

Japanese… Victor’s mind instantly came up with a mental image of black hair, fair skin and brown eyes—and that’s where his imagination kind of stumbled and stopped short.

“Do you have a picture? Of Yuuri?” Victor asked, fixing his gaze on Phichit. He had come here to finally discover the face that belonged to the sender of the messages, and that’s what he intended to get.

“Gee, if I wasn’t here for Yuuri’s sake I might get offended that you’re not at all interested in me,” Phichit said, his laughter teasing.

Phichit pulled out his phone and swiped his thumb over the screen. A couple of taps later he tilted the phone toward Victor, and Victor craned his neck to see.

In the photo, there was a young man with soft, brown eyes and dark, glossy locks of hair falling messily over his forehead. He had blue-rimmed glasses perched on his nose, and the corners of his mouth were turned up in a shy smile. Yuuri’s gaze was fixed at something just off the camera, and there was a deep gleam in his eyes, like a hidden thought no one else knew. His skin was pale, flawless, and his mouth slightly open. Victor tugged at Phichit’s hand to bring the phone closer, taking in the features of the man behind the messages.

_Yuuri_. Victor’s mind whispered the name like a prayer. _He is gorgeous._

Then, suddenly, a darker thought hit Victor. _Why didn’t he want to come meet me?_

“Can I have my hand back, please?” Phichit asked, and Victor realized he was still holding onto Phichit’s hand to keep the phone closer.

“Sorry.” Victor let go and licked his lips. “So… I mean. Why didn’t he want to come meet me himself?”

Phichit looked down and his smile faltered a little. “It’s a long story. And it’s not really mine to tell. But he’s mentioned it in his writing, I presume.”

Victor pursed his lips. “Something like… anxiety?”

Phichit copied Victor’s pursed lips, a worried look flashing over his face. “Something like that… He wanted to come, but…” Phichit trailed off.

Yuuri had wanted to come. Victor’s mysterious Writer _wanted_ to meet him.

“So he sent you to, what, spy on me to see if I am a decent person?” Victor asked.

Phichit’s nose wrinkled up as he formulated his answer. “Well, kind of?”

“Was he scared of me?” Victor inquired.

“More like nervous, I guess. And it was only because he had seen you before, and—“

“ _What_?” Victor interrupted Phichit again. “Where has he seen me? _I_ don’t remember seeing him ever before.”

“Apparently you almost ran into him at the intersection near the fountain. He had just dropped the bottle off when you nearly bumped into him. He saw you rush to the fountain and pick up the bottle, and he realized who you were,” Phichit explained. “’ _Stranger’_ ,” Phichit said, making air quotes with his fingers.

Victor swallowed. Yuuri had known who he was through at least some of their note exchange. Yuuri had seen him pick up the bottle from the fountain. When was that? Victor tried to think back to the day, but the memory eluded him.

Then it clicked.

“Oh. _Oh!_ It was right before I told him I had set up the PO Box!” Victor exclaimed. “His note after seeing me. It was weird, the tone was off. I noticed it.”

So, the tone of the message had been weird because Writer – _Yuuri_ – had seen Victor. Victor tried to remember nearly bumping into someone near the fountain, but he couldn’t bring the incident to the surface from where it was hiding in his sea of memories. He must have only had eyes for the bottle at the time. Victor sighed in frustration.

But Yuuri had seen Victor. He had seen Victor and said nothing.

But then again, he had seen Victor _and_ continued their communication.

And he had asked to know the personal details Victor had written about himself.

He had known what Victor looked like, _and_ he had wanted to know about the real person behind the messages.

All was not lost.

Phichit was sipping his latte and seemingly following Victor’s internal battle with mild amusement. “So,” he finally said. “I can see that you have in mind to pursue my best friend.”

Victor looked sheepish.

“I’m guessing I don’t have to give you the talk?” Phichit tried to look stern. He wasn’t very good at it.

“Which one? The one about the birds and the bees or the one where you tell me if I do anything to hurt your best friend they will never find my body?”

There was a momentary silence, during which Victor was afraid that his humor wouldn’t fly so well with Phichit than it did with Chris, but then Phichit burst out laughing and Victor dared to grin.

“Well, looks like I don’t have to give either of those speeches to you,” Phichit said, the smile back on his face.

Thinking about Chris, Victor realized he was probably still waiting for a word from Victor.

“Shit. Sorry, I need to text my friend to let him know that you haven’t murdered me with a spoon.”

Victor saw Phichit look at him questioningly and mouth the word _spoon_ while Victor quickly typed a message to Chris:

_Hey man. No spoons, no knitting needles, no Writer either. Sent his best friend to scope me out._

 

Chris’s reply was almost instantaneous:

_HIS best friend? So it IS a hot guy after all. lol good luck!_

 

Victor replied:

_I’m gonna stick around, see what I can get out of the best friend. You gonna be okay on your own?_

 

The last reply came within seconds of Chris reading Victor’s message.

_Yes, Mother. See you later._

 

Victor put the phone away and turned back to Phichit. “So, where were we?”

“You were going to tell me what is going on with this _murdering people with spoons_ thing,” Phichit said, raising an eyebrow.

“Inside joke. My friend Chris was sure that Writer was a serial killer who was going to kill me with a spoon. I don’t know where the spoon came from, you need to ask Chris.” Victor shook his head. “There was also something about Writer being a grandma who was going to murder me with knitting needles.”

Phichit looked at Victor like he’d just sprouted an extra head. “Uh-huh. I see.”

“Okay, changing the subject before you conclude I’m too crazy for Yuuri,” Victor said. “So. What do I need to do to get Yuuri to meet me?”

“Well…” Phichit grinned. “You could try to look less intimidating?”

Victor frowned. “How am I _intimidating_?”

“From the way Yuuri described you when you almost trampled him, I imagined you looked something like cross between a movie star and a Greek god – with flowy silver hair and flawless gait.”

“Don’t look so disappointed, even gods can have bad hair days,” Victor said defensively. He pushed a lock of hair off his face and frowned as it flopped right back into his field of vision. “And besides, my gait can’t be very flawless if I almost ran him over like a herd of elephants without even noticing it.”

Phichit leaned back in his chair and looked content. “Fair enough. Well, from our conversation so far I can say that at least you pass the ‘sense of humor’ test. Even if your humor is kind of corny.”

“I’m not sure whether I should be offended or grateful,” Victor muttered.

Phichit looked thoughtful. “You know, me neither.” Then he smiled again.

Phichit’s phone buzzed on the table. Victor just managed to catch a glimpse of a message on the screen before the phone was in Phichit’s hand, the display turned away from Victor.

Phichit looked at the screen thoughtfully and typed in something. The phone buzzed again to indicate a reply. Victor didn’t ask, but he was fairly certain he could guess who the messages were from.

Phichit returned the phone on the table, display down. He sipped the last of his latte and said, “I need to go now. I’m sorry I wasn’t the person you wanted to meet today, but I hope you’re not too disappointed.”

Victor blinked. “But… What’s going to happen now? What about meeting Yuuri?”

Phichit wrinkled his brow. “Yeah, that’s a good question. But, um, if you want my advice—“

“Yes, please,” said Victor.

“—I’d recommend you come up with something that’s not too _intense_.” Phichit stood up and started pulling his jacket’s zipper up.

“What does that even mean?” Victor frowned.

“Just. _Not_ something like a candlelit dinner, just the two of you. That might be too much.” Phichit pursed his lips. “Something where Yuuri wouldn’t need to be the center of attention, you know?”

“But—“ Victor looked helplessly at Phichit. “How do I get in touch with him? Or you?” The PO Box didn’t seem a viable option anymore. It had been reserved for the nameless, faceless messages, but it wasn’t made for _real life_. Now that Victor knew of the real person behind those messages, he wanted something more real.

“Yuuri would kill me if I gave his number to you.” Phichit looked apologetic. “Oh, I know! Message me on Instagram,” Phichit said. “I’m phichit+chu; p-h-i-c-h-i-t+c-h-u. Did you get that?”

Victor only nodded. With that, the younger man waved at Victor happily and left the coffee shop.

Victor sat at the table for a long time, gathering his thoughts. The first thing he did after Phichit left, though, was installing the Instagram app on his phone. He typed in the name Phichit had given him and found the profile easily enough. Victor browsed through the photos and stopped every now and then to look at the ones with Yuuri in them. Most of the photos were selfies, with Phichit in the foreground, but often Yuuri was somewhere within the frame, sometimes covering his face with his hand as if to hide from the camera, sometimes looking annoyed, but often smiling as well.

Victor scrolled down the seemingly endless stream of photos, and stopped when there was a touristy picture of Yuuri in the front lobby of the Natural History Museum.

In the messages, Yuuri had said he liked history. Or at least that his interests were parallel to Victor’s, whatever that meant. It would make sense he went to museums. Victor wondered if he’d ever been to the one Victor worked at.

Still deep in thought, Victor gathered his belongings and stood up.

He saw a flash of blue peeking behind the chair that had been previously occupied by Phichit, and realized that Phichit had left his umbrella behind. Victor took the umbrella with him. At least he’d need to see Phichit again, to return the umbrella. That was one step closer to meeting Yuuri. Or something like that.

Victor stepped outside the coffee shop and into the pale sunshine. The rain had moved on, and the clouds were beginning to scatter apart. The city looked like it had been washed clean, and the air felt easier to breathe. Sometimes Victor forgot how dusty and stuffy the air in the city usually was.

Victor walked up to the subway station with an umbrella in both hands and took the train home. On the train he messaged Phichit on Instagram:

_You left your umbrella at the coffee shop. I am holding it hostage until I meet Yuuri._

 

Phichit’s reply was quick:

_Well, it’s Yuuri’s umbrella anyway, so you have to bring it up with him… ;)_

 

Victor wondered if Phichit had left the umbrella on purpose. He sat in the subway car with two umbrellas leaning onto his knee and tried to think about possible, non-threatening places to meet with Yuuri.

When the idea struck him, it was almost too obvious.

Yuuri liked history; Victor worked in a museum that just so happened to be hosting an opening night for an exhibition on Saturday.

It would be a perfect way to meet Yuuri in a setting that didn’t put too much pressure on either of them because the spotlight would be on the museum and its artifacts, not them.

The only problem was that the event at the museum was coming up in two days. So, Victor had _two days_ to convince Yuuri to attend the event with him. Well, one day and a half, seeing as it was Thursday night.

Victor leaned back and rested his head against the subway car window, watching the tunnel walls pass by, illuminated only by the light coming from inside the train. He felt the train tremble as it moved onward, the rails clanking against the train’s wheelset when they passed over a switch. From the corner of his eye, Victor could just see the dark mouth of the tunnel that separated from the one the train was currently in, the tracks disappearing into the darkness. For a moment Victor wondered how the first switch for railroad tracks had come to be. Who had come up with the idea that turning a handle beside the tracks could move a part of the tracks, making it possible for railroads to fork in Y shapes and trains to pass over the switch to either left or right, depending on what position the switch was in.

Victor knew he could google it to find out the history of the switch, but that wasn’t really what he was interested in. He wondered what had been going on in the mind of the person inventing the switch, what kind of ideas had prompted it and what skills it had required to accomplish. The inventiveness of the human mind never ceased to amaze him. He wondered if Yuuri was the same in this sense; endlessly curious and looking for answers. From the messages Victor concluded that he might be, but perhaps the reality would be a bit different. People often expressed themselves differently on paper than they did in real life.

The train car tilted slightly in a curve just then, and the blue umbrella fell and clattered onto the floor, bringing Victor back to reality. He reached down to grab the umbrella and held onto it tightly for the rest of the trip. The umbrella was his only link to Yuuri right now.

Well, that and Phichit’s Instagram account, but at least the umbrella was something tangible.

Victor called Chris when he got out of the train a few blocks from his apartment.

“ _Hey, so how did it go?_ ” Chris asked enthusiastically.

“Well, considering that I didn’t get Writer, only his happy sidekick, it went well I guess,” Victor replied.

“ _Elaborate_ ,” Chris demanded.

“Well, at first he was pretending to be Writer, but that didn’t go too well. He was just too happy and not at all like I had imagined, and then it came out that he was actually Writer’s best friend, come to scope me out and see if he needed to make sure they never find my body. You know, the usual stuff.”

“ _No spoons though?_ ”

“No spoons,” Victor said with a grin. “And I did see a photo of Writer. Yuuri, I mean.”

“ _Say that again_ ,” Chris said. “ _What was his name?_ ”

“Yuuri,” Victor repeated. “He is Japanese. And he is gorgeous.” And apparently had some kind of social anxiety, but Victor felt Chris didn’t need to know that right now.

“ _Well, when’s the wedding?_ ” Chris inquired.

“Well, I think I should first _meet_ the person before planning our wedding,” Victor said dryly.

“ _Pfft, arranged marriages have been a thing for a long time. No need for all that dating hassle_ ,” Chris laughed.

“Uh-huh.” Victor rolled his eyes as he climbed up the steps to the front door of his apartment building. He had to hold the umbrellas under his arm so he could open the door while talking on the phone. “I have his umbrella, by the way.”

“ _You did not steal the poor man’s umbrella before you even met him. Vitya, what have I told you about manners?_ ” Chris sighed melodramatically.

“Funny.” Victor entered the echoing staircase. “His wingman left it in the coffee shop we were in. So I’m holding the umbrella hostage until I get to meet Yuuri.”

“ _Clever_.” The end of the word was garbled.

“What are you eating?” Victor asked, climbing up the stairs. He stopped dead in the middle of the stairs. “Shit. I need to go buy something to eat. Thanks for reminding me.”

“ _Mhhnoprobbem_ ,” Chris said and swallowed audibly. “ _I got quesadillas. Mmm_.”

“Okay, well, I have a big plan for the weekend, but right now I gotta go get something to eat. I’ll call you when I get home.” Victor pushed the phone into his pocket and stood in the stairs.

Victor stood in the staircase for a moment, weighing his options concerning the umbrellas. In the end, he decided to climb up and drop the umbrellas in his apartment before going dinner-hunting.

Victor didn’t want to sacrifice any of his thought capacity to food, so he marched into the corner deli and ordered his usual chicken wrap. While he waited for the worker to prepare the food, Victor’s eyes found the blue-frosted cupcakes sitting in their glass case, looking as artificial as ever. He wondered what Yuuri had thought upon finding the cupcake in the PO Box.

Somehow everything about their exchange of messages felt different now that Victor had a face to attach to the notes. The perspective had shifted. Everything Yuuri had written in his messages now had a face attached to the content. Somehow, it made everything look more vivid, like someone had lit up a candle to bring the words to light. All the small details Yuuri had written Victor could now join to the mental image in his head, and perhaps someday everything added together would form a full picture of the person that was Yuuri.

Victor came home and ate his takeaway wrap at the table beneath the cork board that was still full of messages. Victor munched on the wrap and carefully read the parts of the messages that were visible under the post-its. If he ever managed to get Yuuri to come over to his place, he’d have to clean the board of the messages. Looking at it now, Victor could see why Chris had thought him crazy upon seeing it.

Because Victor had some manners, he only called Chris when he had finished eating. One phone call where one of them was mumbling through food was enough for one day.

“So, we have the exhibition opening for invited guests at the museum on Saturday, right?” Victor said. “The one I’ve spent weeks setting up.”

“ _Yeah, I think I have heard you complain about it a few times. Or more like a thousand times_ ,” Chris said with a huff.

“Anyway,” Victor said pointedly. “I want to invite Yuuri there.”

Chris was quiet for a moment. “ _Sure. I guess that works as a first date_.” He didn’t sound very sure, and if this were anyone else Victor was courting, he might have been uncertain about it too.

“It’s perfect. He likes history and doesn’t like being the center of attention. His wingman Phichit said that a date with just the two of us might be too much. Too much pressure. But if I meet him at the museum opening, the focus will be on the museum, and it’s going to be easy for me to find stuff to talk about.”

“ _So you’re going to talk his ear off by explaining him every detail of the history of this and that piece of ceramics. Yeah, sounds like the perfect idea for a date_ ,” Chris said sarcastically.

“Seriously, pull your head out your ass,” Victor huffed good-humoredly. “It’s not _you_ I’m planning this date for.”

“ _I know, I know. With me you could have endless margaritas, grapes fed to you and perhaps me on a stripper pole. But no, you choose a dusty museum_.”

“As inviting as that sounds, I think I’ll have to pass,” Victor said with a chuckle.

“ _Your loss_ ,” Chris countered happily.

“I’m sure it is,” Victor deadpanned. “Now, to the more important questions: should I get that haircut now?”

“ _I think first you need to convince your date to actually show up. You can worry about appearances later_ ,” Chris said matter-of-factly.

Chris was annoying when he was right, which unfortunately happened a lot. Victor toyed with his phone after ending the call, checking Phichit’s Instagram again.

There was a new photo, of Phichit and some food. On the background, Victor could see half of Yuuri’s face, with his hair sticking in all directions and his eyes looking thoughtfully down at a bowl of food. It was posted just a few minutes before. Somehow it felt funny that somewhere in the city, Yuuri and Phichit were eating dinner at the same time as Victor. Granted, their food looked a lot more inviting than Victor’s wrap had looked, but food was food.

Victor opened the messages inbox and sent:

_There is an exhibition opening at the museum next to the fountain on Sat at 6PM. You think Yuuri would come meet me there? I can only promise ancient artifacts, canapes & wine and my corny sense of humor, but hopefully it’s enough. All he needs to do is say that he’s Victor Nikiforov’s plus one at the door._

 

The following ten minutes were agony. Victor bit his lip and stared at his phone on the table, willing it to buzz a notification from Instagram. He tried to imagine what was going on in the receiving end of the message, but gave up when his mind only came up with worst-case scenarios about Yuuri not wanting to meet him at all, maybe he changed his mind about it and wanted nothing to do with Victor anymore.

The phone buzzed.

Victor swiped the screen and saw Phichit’s reply.

_Dress code?_

 

Victor typed in:

_Suit is good but not obligatory. Smart casual works just as well._

 

This time he didn’t have to wait for ten minutes, because Phichit’s reply came within seconds:

_He’ll be there._

 

~

 

The time felt longer than just one full day and half of another. In fact, it felt longer than the previous wait of three days to meet Writer in the park.

Victor figured that it had to be because now he felt like he had something to lose. Upon walking into that park, he could only _gain_ something – a face to the messages, a friend, perhaps something more – but now that he knew what he was expecting, waiting was more daunting.

Friday passed excruciatingly slowly, and on Saturday it felt like time wasn’t moving forward at all.

Victor considered the haircut, but decided against it, because one could never know the results of a haircut beforehand and Victor wasn’t in the mood to gamble with his looks. Besides, the weather was a lot nicer than it had been on Thursday, so he actually stood a chance of making his hair look presentable.

Victor spent Saturday afternoon ironing his gray suit, shaving his face so close that it felt like he was peeling a layer of skin off with his razor and adding seven different types of product in his hair to make his uncontrollable locks look the way he wanted them to.

Victor selected a black button-up shirt and a wine-red tie. He polished his shoes. Essentially, he did everything he could to pass the time.

Victor walked the eight blocks to the museum unhurriedly, stopping for a moment to pick up a popsicle stick from the fountain as he passed it. It was odd to imagine that his habit of picking up trash from the fountain had led him here. Victor stopped beside the fountain for a second to think about it. It had been almost two months since the first message in the fountain.

Two months, during which Victor’s life had taken a much-needed turn from dull to interesting.

And it all culminated into this – finally meeting the secretive Writer. Victor swallowed a lump in his throat and dropped the popsicle stick into the trashcan before crossing the street to the museum gates.

He was early, so the doors were still locked. Victor let himself in using his electronic key and walked up the stairs toward the exhibition hall. As he got closer, he was met with the usual bustle of last-minute arrangements before an opening. The tables were being set with trays of canapes, someone was pouring sparkling wine into glasses standing in impeccably straight rows on the table and the waiters were taking orders from Celestino, who stood near the doorway, looking slightly stressed.

Victor walked over. “Hey. Everything ready?” he asked.

“Victor! Glad that you could make it,” Celestino beamed. He patted Victor’s shoulder a few times and then promptly forgot Victor’s existence as someone from the other side of the hallway called him.

Victor strolled around the exhibition hall. Everything was in place and looked good. He walked out of the hall and nearly bumped into Yuri Plisetsky, who was storming in from the long hallway.

“Hey, Yuri,” Victor greeted.

Yuri was dressed in a suit and didn’t look all too happy about it. “Shh,” the teen shushed through gritted teeth. “Sara said that Celestino says I have to help the waiters with the canapes. I am making an escape.”

“In style, I see,” Victor said, eyeing Yuri from head to toe. “Nice suit.”

“This sucks, honestly. How does James Bond get anything done in a suit?” Yuri grumbled.

“I don’t know, but you should probably figure it out if you want to make your escape,” Victor grinned. “Celestino is coming this way.”

Yuri let out a small annoyed noise and vanished between the curtains into the maintenance hallway. He wouldn’t get very far that way, because the only way out from that hallway was through a locked door or a second-floor window. Victor kind of wanted to see what kind of an escape Yuri would arrange, though. Perhaps he would climb out the window and jump into the rose bushes below. Victor wouldn’t put it past Yuri to do just that.

As groups of people began trickling toward the exhibition hall, Victor realized that the front doors had been opened. Some people made their way straight to the canapes and wine, while others were doing rounds in the exhibition hall. Victor started descending the stairs slowly, watching over the balustrade as the flow of people kept advancing in the lobby.

Victor stopped halfway down the stairs, because he spotted something.

Something blue.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, Yuuri sure took this sweet time before making an appearance. I was groaning in frustration when I reached 25k words and he still hadn't shown his face. Hope you're still with me! :D
> 
> -  
> If you have any questions, ask me on my [tumblr](https://worldofcopperwings.tumblr.com/) or in the comments below. All feedback is much appreciated!  
> -  
> Thanks to [merkitty](https://merkitty.tumblr.com/) and [victuurimaker](http://victuurimaker.tumblr.com/) for helping me out with this.


	6. a dance in the dark

Yuuri was standing near the museum’s doors in the front lobby, close to the wall, tugging at the sleeve of his suit jacket and adjusting his tie.

Victor blinked. The suit Yuuri was wearing was blue, a slightly darker shade of blue than the sky on a bright summer day. It stood out from the crowd of muted blacks and grays like a sapphire against a background of coal.

Yuuri looked stunning. His hair was slicked back and it was shining jet black in the dimmed lights of the lobby. Yuuri’s blue-rimmed glasses were gone, and he was mostly looking down at his shoes. He fidgeted some more with his sleeve, and Victor leaned onto the balustrade halfway down the stairs, taking in the sight.

Now that the moment was finally here, he didn’t know how to proceed. He kind of wanted to shout across the room, tell Yuuri that his thoughts were some of the most interesting things Victor had ever read, and also that _damn_ he looked good. But he didn’t want to scare Yuuri away.

Victor walked down the rest of the stairs and crossed the room to the front doors. As he came closer to the radiant blue of Yuuri’s suit, Victor suddenly felt nervous. He slowed down, finally coming to a halt beside Yuuri. He stood there casually, facing the same direction as Yuuri, watching the crowds of people gathering in flocks around the front lobby and up on the balcony the led to the exhibition hall.

“Hey,” Victor finally said softly.

Yuuri jumped and looked up, startled. “Hi,” he replied.

A momentary silence fell between them, the chattering of the people around them feeling more pronounced all of a sudden.

“This is weird,” Victor said, chuckling nervously.

“Yeah,” Yuuri agreed, his gaze going over the room that was filling with people.

“I mean, I feel like I know your thoughts,” Victor continued. “But now there is this physical entity attached to the thoughts, and it’s so different.”

Yuuri nodded. “I know what you mean. Perhaps you should have let me stay just as words on paper.” He glanced at Victor in a way that said he would understand if Victor was disappointed.

Victor wanted to take Yuuri by the shoulders and shake that look off, but instead he just shook his head fiercely. “No, please don’t say that. This is so much better than I could have imagined.”

Yuuri’s brown eyes met his, then, properly for the first time. “Really?” he asked, holding Victor’s gaze.

And it wasn’t Victor doing any kind of charming or sweeping anyone off their feet. No, he was the one being swept away, just like that. He looked into Yuuri’s eyes and he _felt_ something. Something Victor hadn’t felt in a long time. His throat felt dry and constricted and Victor had to turn away to cough into his hand. The breaking of the eye contact allowed Victor to breathe again, and he inhaled shakily.

“Do you want to get something drink? Or some canapes? I promised canapes, and I like to keep my promises,” Victor managed to grin through the strangling feeling in his throat. He was suddenly well aware that if he fucked this up, he might not get another chance.

“I can see that the promised canapes are plentiful,” Yuuri said with a slight smile. “You also promised ancient artifacts if I recall correctly.”

Victor led Yuuri to the exhibition room and they walked around, looking at the items in their glass cases.

Well, Victor had seen them so many times by now that he was mostly looking at _Yuuri_ , though.

Yuuri had dug his glasses from the suit’s breast pocket and was now leaning in to read the item descriptions on the side of the case. He seemed to forget his surroundings as he mouthed the words and looked at each corresponding item in each case. The spotlight that illuminated the case from above created a soft glow on Yuuri’s features as he stood close to the glass.

“Victor,” a voice said from behind him, and Victor turned around to see Celestino standing there with another man beside him. The curator introduced the man to Victor; another curator from another museum, and Victor shook the man’s hand politely. Victor knew these kinds of events were the time when he was supposed to mingle and get to know the possible future research partners and colleagues, but he was distracted. He was acutely aware of Yuuri moving to the next glass case behind him, could see the blue suit moving down toward the end of the hall from the corner of his eye. Victor replied to a few questions distractedly, tossed in a few polite remarks and then excused himself to go after Yuuri.

He found Yuuri in the corner, bent over to examine an Eastern European brooch. “Sorry about that,” Victor said. “Work, you know.”

Yuuri glanced over at him and nodded. “Don’t worry about it.” He continued reading the item description of the brooch, set next to the item inside the case.

“Do you want something to drink?” Victor asked.

“No, thank you,” Yuuri declined politely. He turned away from the brooch and straightened up. Victor realized Yuuri wasn’t that much shorter than he was. He only needed to tilt his head down slightly to meet Yuuri’s eyes. Victor studied the face in front of him for a moment. Yuuri squirmed a little and blushed, turning his head away.

“How old are you?” Victor blurted out. Yuuri’s age was difficult to determine. In the photos on Phichit’s Instagram with his hair down he had looked young, about twenty, but here in real life with the jet-black hair combed back from his forehead, Victor couldn’t tell for sure anymore.

Yuuri looked down and then back at Victor. His brown eyes sparkled as he challengingly said, “How old do you think I am?”

“That’s not fair,” Victor grumbled.

“I never said I was fair,” Yuuri countered.

“True,” Victor admitted. “Well, I’d say… somewhere between twenty and twenty-five?”

“Close,” Yuuri said with a slight smile. “I’m twenty-four. And what about you, old man?”

Victor gasped in mock-surprise and slammed a hand over his heart. “You wound me. Do I really look that old?”

Yuuri laughed; a short, clear laugher. Victor wanted to hear more of it.

“No, I just figured you have to be older because you are almost done with your PhD,” Yuuri confessed. Victor realized that Yuuri was at an advantage, because he knew a lot more of Victor than Victor did of him.

“Fair enough. I’m 28,” Victor said. Just two years shy of thirty. He tried not to think about it. “You know a lot more about me than I know about you, so do I get anything in return for my letter detailing pretty much every personal detail about my life?” Victor continued.

“I told you, my thoughts are much more interesting that I am,” Yuuri said, dancing around the question. Victor realized he was equally as good at dodging questions in real life as he was on paper.

They walked back toward the entrance to the exhibition hall. Victor spotted Yuri Plisetsky standing in a corner with a tray of canapes in his hands, his expression saying that he was ready to murder anybody who approached him. Victor showed him a thumbs-up behind Yuuri’s back when they passed the angry Russian Punk, and Yuri looked like he wanted to bite Victor’s head off.

“What was that?” Yuuri asked, nodding his head toward the corner where Yuri was. Victor wondered if Yuuri really did notice everything happening around him.

“That was one of our interns, helping out with the canapes. The last time I saw him he was trying to make an escape into the maintenance hallway or possibly jump into a rose bush through a second-floor window, but I guess the curator caught up with him.” Victor grinned. Some people thought that working in a museum was dull and unexciting, but sometimes Victor thought this place was a full-on circus show.

Apparently Yuuri thought the same, because the corners of his mouth twitched in a half-successful attempt at hiding a smile. “I never realized working in a museum was so full of excitement.”

“Oh you haven’t seen anything yet,” Victor said theatrically, rolling his eyes. “Yuri Plisetsky is like a one-man circus, really.”

They walked out of the exhibition hall and stopped next to the balustrade where they could see the front entrance hall and the people in it. Victor leaned onto the railing and let his eyes wander over the scattered groups of people.

Yuuri stood next to him, and for a moment there was a silence between them. Slightly awkward silence, yet somehow a comfortable one.

“So, got any life stories for this bunch?” Yuuri finally asked, glancing at Victor. “I especially enjoyed the one you came up for the mother of two. CIA agent, sounds plausible.”

Victor looked at the crowd below thoughtfully. “Hmm. See that woman in a purple dress over there?”

Yuuri nodded.

“Well, she’s married to the man next to him, right? But she’s also having an affair with the man standing opposite to her.”

Yuuri tilted his head. “Why would you think that?” he inquired.

“See the way she looks at him? That look is screaming _affair_. But that’s not all,” Victor continued.

“Oh?” Yuuri smiled. “There’s more?”

“Oh yes,” Victor said solemnly. “She’s also hiding the fact that she is an alien from another planet.”

Yuuri laughed again, and Victor gave himself a mental high five for making it happen.

“An alien?” Yuuri said, giving Victor a disbelieving smile. “Why is that?”

“She’s an alien and she has only two kinds of color-sensing cones in her eyes. She sees colors differently than we do. That has to the only plausible explanation for why she chose to wear _that_ shade of purple with _those_ orange shoes,” Victor said with a convincing nod.

Yuuri’s laughter lasted longer this time, and Victor’s stomach was doing victorious somersaults at the sound.

“Funny,” Yuuri said. “You should become a private detective or something.”

“Maybe I will. I’ll just abandon my dissertation and work from home now on. I’ll get a trench coat and a fedora and sit in my living room office with a dramatic spotlight hanging over my desk. I smoke cigarettes inside and make snarky remarks about my customers. I take work orders from wives who think their husbands are cheating and from husbands who suspect their wives might be aliens.” Victor nodded matter-of-factly. “It will be great.”

“Sounds like you have it all planned out.” Yuuri nodded solemnly. His eyes revealed him, though, because Victor saw a gleam in them that could only mean that Yuuri was amused.

Victor’s chest felt like it was hard to get a full lungful of air. Yuuri thought he was funny. Yuuri was laughing at his nonsensical stories. Yuuri could smile with just his eyes. Victor desperately wanted to know more of this man standing beside him on the balcony overlooking the museum entrance hall.

“Yuuri,” Victor said, trying the name out. “Will you please tell me something about yourself?”

Yuuri pursed his lips and looked down, and Victor cursed himself for making the easy-going atmosphere disappear.

“Did you read the trilogy I wrote about?” Yuuri responded to his question with a question.

Well, it was a reply. Kind of.

“Not yet,” Victor admitted. “Honestly, I haven’t been reading anything besides scientific research for such a long time. But I did order the books from Amazon and they should arrive soon.”

“Books? Like actual books?” Yuuri asked. “Not e-books?”

“I never got into e-books,” Victor said. “I guess it has to do with the fact that most of the research I read is online, so grabbing an actual, physical copy of a book differentiates it from work.”

Yuuri smiled. “I’m the same, never got into electronic books. I just have a different reason for it.”

“And what’s that?” Victor queried.

“The smell. You don’t get that distinctive smell of a new book, or an old one at that, if you read books on kindle or whatever,” Yuuri said wistfully.

Victor nodded. He’d never thought about it like that, but it made sense.

“So how about you? Did you read any Amelia Peabody novels?” Victor asked Yuuri in return.

“I did, actually.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. I read the first one,” Yuuri said. “You were right. She’s one badass character.”

Eventually, Victor managed to persuade Yuuri to try some of the canapes. Not from the tray that Yuri was carrying, though. Victor was fairly sure the teen would toss the tray in his face if he tried to approach it.

They were standing halfway down the stairs, eating small pieces of white bread with some kind of mayonnaise and a rolled-up slice of pickled cucumber on it, when a voice spoke from behind Victor. What was it with people appearing to talk to him from behind today?

“Hey, Victor. Who’s your friend?”

Victor turned around to face Sara. The purple-eyed girl was holding a tray full of empty wine glasses.

Victor made the introductions. “Hey, Sara. This is Yuuri. Yuuri, this is Sara, one of our interns.”

“I would shake your hand, but my hands are kind of full at the moment,” Sara said, nodding down toward the tray in her hands. “Well, it was nice to meet you. I have to go take these downstairs.”

“Nice to meet you too,” Yuuri said. His smile was polite, but it seemed forced.

When Sara was gone, Victor turned to study Yuuri’s face. He wanted to be able to read the slight shifts in Yuuri’s expressions, but he couldn’t. So he had to ask.

“Is everything okay?”

Yuuri nodded. “Yeah. There’s just a lot of people. I’m not good with crowds.”

Victor had an idea. “Well, do you want to go away from the crowds for a bit?”

He hadn’t realized how suggestive the question sounded until Yuuri gave him a questioning, wide-eyed look.

“Not like that,” Victor said hastily. “I mean, if you wanted to get out of the mass of people, I could show you some other exhibitions we have going on. I can let us into the closed sections.”

The other parts of the museum were closed, of course, but Victor had his key so that wasn’t an issue. The only issue might be a night guard working the rounds but Victor was on friendly terms with most of the guards, so they might look the other way if they happened to cross paths in the closed sections.

Yuuri bit his lower lip thoughtfully. Victor tried not to stare, but it turned out to be impossible. Victor could see that there were thoughts running in Yuuri’s mind, and he would have paid good money to know what Yuuri was thinking.

Finally Yuuri shrugged. “Sure. I mean, if you don’t get in trouble.”

“It’s fine,” Victor said dismissively. Anything to impress Yuuri.

Victor led them up the stairs and through the crowd gathered around the entrance to the exhibition hall where the opening was. There was a rope sectioning off the rest of the hallway, but Victor unfastened the rope from one of the poles and let Yuuri pass through, then followed himself and refastened the rope. He glanced back to see if anyone had paid attention to them entering a restricted section, but no one was looking. Apparently wine and canapes were more interesting than two men sneaking off into the darkness. The hallway grew darker toward the other end, and Victor motioned Yuuri to follow as they made their way to one of the closed doors on the right side.

Victor flashed his key to the electronic lock and the red light above it turned green. Victor pushed the door open. They entered the dim room. Only the emergency exit lights around the doors were lit, illuminating the series of adjoined rooms in a dim green glow. Victor closed the door after them, and they stood in the doorway for a moment, waiting for their eyes to adjust to the lack of light.

After a moment, Yuuri chuckled softly beside him. “I’m pretty sure that there isn’t a single archeological museum that _doesn’t_ have an Ancient Egypt section.”

Victor pouted, although he wasn’t sure if Yuuri could see it. “Well, we can go across the hallway and see the Civil War era collection, but I thought it might be interesting to see if the mummies actually come alive during the night.”

“Oh, you have mummies? As in, more than one?” Yuuri said, laughter in his tone. “Color me impressed.”

Victor sighed. “We have two,” he admitted. “And one of them is a loan mummy.”

“A loan mummy,” Yuuri repeated. “Well, why don’t you lead me to the mummies and we’ll see if they have escaped their coffins.”

The museum was eerie during the nighttime. Most of the windows were covered because the artifacts needed to be sheltered from the sunlight during daytime, so there was no light coming through from the outside world. The emergency lighting was dim, but once their eyes got used to it, it was sufficient enough for walking around the glass displays on the floor and toward the last room where the mummies were on display.

They walked up to the glass cases protecting the mummies and circled around the shriveled remains that were staring up at the ceiling with their empty eye-sockets.

“They don’t look like they’re going to get up and dance,” Yuuri observed.

“True,” Victor said. “I’m a bit disappointed this isn’t like _Night at the Museum_. You know, the movie?”

Yuuri nodded, leaning in to watch the mummy’s face. “Yeah, I know of the movie, just haven’t seen it…” He studied the face for a moment. “If these mummies would come alive, I wonder what kinds of stories they would tell.”

Victor stepped closer to Yuuri and looked at the mummy. “Well, I don’t know about you, but my Old Egyptian language skills are a little bit rusty, so that might be a problem.”

Yuuri circled around the case so the mummy was in between them. Victor pretended not to notice.

“Yeah, I have no mentionable linguistic skills, really,” Yuuri said. “I only speak basic mummy. I might be able to order a pizza from them, though.”

Victor laughed. “Huh, I see. I wonder what the mummies would think of that.”

“Seeing as they wouldn’t know what a pizza is, probably not much.” Yuuri tilted his head and looked at Victor over the display case. In the dim light it was difficult to see his expression, but Victor was pretty sure he was amused.

“So, you said you like history?” Victor tried once again to get Yuuri to talk about himself.

“You could say that,” Yuuri admitted. “I study art history at the university.”

“Really?” Victor asked, latching onto the first thing Yuuri had revealed of himself. “That’s interesting.”

“Yeah, it’s interesting but I’m not sure if it’s the right major for me.” Yuuri shrugged.

Victor said nothing, hoping it would encourage further explanation from Yuuri. The silence stretched on. Just as Victor was about to break the silence, Yuuri continued.

“I would actually like to write a book.”

“A book,” Victor repeated. “What about?” he asked, taking a few steps to get to the short edge of the mummy case, so he was again closer to Yuuri. Yuuri shifted, moving around the case ahead of Victor. It was like a strange choreography where they stepped around each other in synchrony; a dance in the dark around the mummy display case.

Yuuri looked down at the mummy’s feet. “I’m not entirely sure yet.”

“Does it involve notes left in public places and coded messages?” Victor grinned, stepping back from the mummy.

Yuuri laughed. “Maybe?”

“So am I your guinea pig for the novel, then?” Victor asked.

“Well. I was hoping that someone would reply. That’s all.”

“Was it what you expected?” Victor continued.

It was hard to tell in the dimness of the room, but Yuuri looked like he was blushing. “Quite a bit more than I expected, to be honest,” Yuuri said. He looked up, and when their eyes met, Victor was sure there was some kind of an electric charge surging through the air between them.

“What did you think when you realized it was me? When I nearly bumped into you on the crosswalk?” Victor wasn’t trying to go closer to Yuuri physically anymore, but there were other ways of getting closer to someone.

Yuuri bit his lip again. Victor concluded it was something he did when he was nervous or thinking about something that made him nervous.

“I—I thought that it would be better if we never saw each other,” Yuuri said.

Victor’s stomach felt like someone was crushing it with an iron fist. “Oh,” he said, trying to conceal the disappointment in his tone.

Yuuri inhaled audibly. “No, I didn’t mean it like—I meant, I didn’t think you’d want to meet me.”

Victor wondered what had made Yuuri the way he was, afraid that people would leave him and unable to understand his own worth.

“Why wouldn’t I want to meet you?” Victor asked softly, taking a few steps closer to Yuuri again. This time, Yuuri didn’t move away and Victor ended up standing very close to the sleeve of Yuuri’s blue suit. He was weirdly aware of the closeness.

“I’m not that interesting,” Yuuri shrugged. “I mean, you are almost finished with your PhD and you look like that, and then there’s me, working on my master’s degree in art history and thinking I’m probably going to fail that too. Plus, you know, not the supermodel type as you can see.”

Yuuri was afraid that he would fail his master’s degree _too_? What else did Yuuri think he was failing? Victor stored this question for later, thought, because there were more pressing issues at hand.

Like convincing Yuuri that he was amazing and gorgeous.

“You think you’re not interesting?” Victor said, astonished. “But you wrote all those notes, about using your heart as a compass, and how people have tens of thousands of thoughts in one day and if we were aware of them all we’d go insane. Those are not the writings of a dull person, Yuuri. You don’t even realize how interesting you are.”

Yuuri made a small noise that might have been either acceptance or denial. Either way, Victor wasn’t done. Cautiously, he put his hand out and let it hover over Yuuri’s arm. It was kind of like approaching a scared animal, going slowly and letting them know his intentions beforehand. Victor lowered his hand on Yuuri’s arm. Yuuri startled but didn’t move. He exhaled shakily and then drew in air in a short, rapid inhale.

“And Yuuri…” Victor said. “I wish you could see yourself the way I see you.”

In the dim room, Yuuri’s pupils were dilated wide and his skin looked very pale in the green tint of the emergency exit lights. Victor felt the arm under his hand tremble as he raised his other hand to carefully stroke Yuuri’s cheek with the back of his hand. It was a ghost of a touch, barely even there as his knuckles grazed the skin of Yuuri’s jawline.

Yuuri was suddenly extremely still, his eyes wide, and Victor withdrew both his hands in an instant. “Sorry,” he said, stepping back.

“No, it’s…” Yuuri didn’t finish the sentence. “Maybe we should go back to the party?”

On the way back, they ran into the night security guard in the long hallway as they were closing in on the rope sectioning off the party.

The guard gave Victor a look. Victor spread his hands in feigned innocence and gave the guard a charming grin. “Sorry,” he mouthed as the guard huffed and continued his rounds. “That was Emil,” Victor explained to Yuuri. “He’ll probably give me a hard time when he sees me next time, but it’s okay. He won’t get me in trouble.”

They passed the rope and into the lit area.

Victor stopped before they came closer to the groups of people. “Look, Yuuri. I am sorry if I startled you. It’s just… I feel like I know you already, so I kind of forgot this was the first time we met. Please don’t hate me.”

Yuuri raised his hand to adjust the collar of his blue suit jacket. “I couldn’t hate you. Hate is such a strong emotion; it requires a lot of energy. I don’t make a point of going around hating people I don’t even know.”

It stung a little. But then again, Yuuri was right. They didn’t know each other, not really. They had exchanged thoughts and seen each other face to face once, but that was it. To hate someone required some kind of personal relationship to have occurred, and this didn’t really fall under that category. Yet. Hopefully some day it might. Not for Yuuri to hate Victor, of course, but for them to have something more than whatever this currently was.

Yuuri pursed his lips thoughtfully. “I know what you’re talking about, though. I kind of feel like I know you too.”

“So… You think you might want to see me again?” Victor asked, batting his lashes in an almost comical way.

It worked, because Yuuri laughed.

“I suppose,” Yuuri said thoughtfully. “Right now, I think I want to go home. Please don’t take it personally. It’s just how I function.”

Victor looked down and nodded. It was hard not to take it personally, but he would manage. “Can I at least have your phone number? Arranging dates via Phichit’s Instagram doesn’t really appeal to me.”

“Oh, you’re taking all the fun out of Phichit’s life, though. He loves playing matchmaker.” Yuuri smiled shyly.

“So is that a no, then?” Victor asked, faking a sniffle.

Yuuri rolled his eyes, but the corners of his mouth twitched in an attempt to conceal a smile. “Fine.”

They exchanged numbers, and Victor walked Yuuri out of the building and across the courtyard. At the gates, he was unsure about what to say. Yuuri lingered under the arch of the gate, looking the same as Victor felt.

“Well.” Victor fidgeted. “This wasn’t so bad, right?”

Yuuri shook his head. “Not bad, no. Weird, yes. Interesting, yes. Scary, yes. But not bad.”

“Scary? Why scary?” Victor asked.

Yuuri bit his lip. Victor was getting addicted to the sight.

“Nothing, just… you, looking like you. And me—“

“Don’t finish that sentence.” Victor’s words were snappy but his tone was gentle. Yuuri looked down. “Look at me, Yuuri.”

The brown eyes inched up from the ground slowly. They traveled over Victor’s knee and up along his arm to the shoulder and finally to his face. Victor shivered as if he could feel the gaze like a touch. Yuuri’s eyes met his, wide and uncertain. Victor wanted nothing in this life as much as to cup Yuuri’s face in his hands and kiss him.

Instead, he swallowed and held the gaze. “You don’t realize how gorgeous you are,” Victor said and his voice broke just a little at the end of the sentence. “Inside and out.”

Yuuri looked away. Victor swore to himself that even if it was the last thing he did on this earth he would make things right so that some day, Yuuri would not look away when someone complimented him.

Suddenly Victor remembered something. “Oh,” he said and held up a finger. “Yuuri, wait here just a minute, please.”

Victor walked briskly to the side door under the front stairs. From the door, he looked back across the yard. Yuuri stood under the arch of the gate in his blue suit, the soft lights of the courtyard illuminating him in the darkening night. Victor wished his eyes could take pictures, because he wanted to preserve this moment. He sighed, flashed his key at the lock and let himself in.

Victor rushed to his office and grabbed two things with him: the purple bottle and the blue umbrella that he had brought with him on the previous day. Then he made his way back to the gates and Yuuri was still there, waiting. Victor had been half-afraid that Yuuri would vanish like Cinderella into the night, but there he was, standing under the arch and looking down at his phone.

A group of people were exiting the museum and Victor let them clear out through the gate before walking over to Yuuri.

“Here,” he said, extending both hands at Yuuri.

Yuuri smiled at the sight and took the umbrella and the bottle. “What about the green one?” he asked.

“Oh, I’m keeping that. It still has the note that says _‘check the box’_ and it’s sitting on the corner of my desk.” Victor scratched the back of his neck absently.

Yuuri hid his amusement by looking down at the purple bottle. “I’m still wondering what happened to the blue one,” he said.

“You and me both,” Victor said. “I mean, it’s one thing to pick up a bottle that’s empty, but you could clearly see there was a message in it. And if they read it, it was clear that it was part of a longer conversation, so they should have understood that someone might miss it.”

“People don’t really care about other people, or anything for that matter,” Yuuri said with a shrug.

“How very cynical of you,” Victor replied. “I’m thinking that maybe the city park maintenance crew finally remembered that the pathetic excuse for a park existed and the blue bottle is currently sitting somewhere in a landfill with the message still inside it.”

“They’d recycle the glass, though, wouldn’t they?” Yuuri wrinkled his brow.

“Says the man who claims that people don’t care about anything,” Victor said good-humoredly.

Yuuri shrugged in defeat. “Fine, whatever.” He nodded toward the street outside the gates. “Well, I’m just going to—“

“Which way are you going?” Victor interrupted. “I mean, I could walk with you for a few blocks if it’s okay?”

“Shouldn’t you go back to the party?” Yuuri asked, hesitating.

“I can see the exhibition and the people I work with any time I want. I’m not in a hurry to go back. I just wanna walk with you for a bit. I swear I’m not a crazy stalker,” Victor said with a laugh.

“Isn’t that exactly what a crazy stalker would say?” Yuuri countered, looking at Victor from under his brow.

“There we go, being cynical again. Well, I can go back inside if you don’t want me walking with you—“

“To the opposite direction from the fountain,” Yuuri blurted. “I’m going to the opposite direction from the fountain. To the subway station.”

“Can I walk you to the station, then?”

Yuuri nodded and turned to leave. Victor followed him and settled beside him, matching his pace with Yuuri’s. It felt natural to walk in pace with the dark-haired man.

Three blocks were too short of a distance in Victor’s opinion. Yuuri stopped at the entrance to the subway tunnel and hesitated. He looked up at Victor. “I guess… I’ll see you?”

“I hope so,” Victor said. “I’m definitely looking forward to another date.”

“So this was a date?” Yuuri looked contradicted.

“Did you think it was a date? Because I thought it was a date,” Victor said. He hoped that Yuuri would say yes.

“Maybe it was like a half a date?” Yuuri offered.

“Well, next time I’ll make it a full-on date, I promise.” Victor held a hand over his heart.

“When is next time anyway?” Yuuri asked cautiously.

_Right now_ , Victor wanted to answer, but instead he tapped his chin with his forefinger thoughtfully. “What’s your schedule like?”

Yuuri looked down. “Not much of a schedule right now.”

“Well, I work at the museum on weekdays from eight to about five-ish. Weekends I’m mostly there as well, working on my dissertation. Or well, currently avoiding it like plague.”

Yuuri chuckled.

“But I’m free on evenings during the week and I don’t have anything I can’t get out of during the weekend. So what works best for you?” Victor looked at Yuuri questioningly.

Yuuri shifted his weight from one foot to the other. “I’ll text you?” he said.

Victor had a sinking feeling that it might not happen. “Okay,” he said anyway. “Okay. Text me anytime.”

“Bye.”

“Bye, Yuuri.”

Victor watched the blue suit disappear down the stairs of the subway station, then sighed and turned to walk back to the museum. His heart was fluttering in a way that couldn’t be entirely healthy, but Victor didn’t care. He had finally met Writer, and it had been everything Victor dared to dream of.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, Yuuri finally decided to show his face. :D Took him a while.  
> -  
> If you have any questions, ask me on my [tumblr](https://worldofcopperwings.tumblr.com/) or in the comments below. All feedback is much appreciated!
> 
> Thanks to [merkitty](https://merkitty.tumblr.com/) and [victuurimaker](http://victuurimaker.tumblr.com/) for helping me out with this.


	7. the second half of the first date

Yuuri did text. It took almost 24 hours, but on Sunday night, Victor’s phone buzzed in his pocket as he was playing pool with Chris. Victor checked his phone when it was Chris’s turn, and Yuuri had sent a message that came in multiple parts. Victor read the text several times, grinning.

 

_Have you thought about where you would like to travel if you suddenly could travel anywhere in the world? It’s something I think about quite often, because there are a lot of places I’d like to see, and it changes according to my mood._

_When I’m cold in the winter, I want to see Italy, Spain, Egypt and Malta for warmth and history. Sometimes when it’s particularly hot in my apartment, I want to visit Iceland and Norway and Siberia for exotic coldness._

_Someday I’d also like to take the train that goes across the entirety of Canada from one coast to the other. They say the scenery is breathtaking._

_What about you? Any particular places you’d like to visit?_

 

“Vitya, it’s your turn!” Chris said, poking him with the bumper end of his cue stick.

Victor side-stepped so he was out of reach, and started typing in a reply.

Chris appeared behind his shoulder. “Oooh, is the boyfriend texting you?” he cooed.

Victor rolled his eyes and elbowed Chris lightly in the ribs. “He’s not my boyfriend, and since when did you have permission to read my texts over my shoulder?” he asked.

“Since you decided to become my friend,” Chris said. “Oh, I know, let _me_ reply to him!”

Victor held the phone protectively with his both hands. “Like hell I will,” he said.

“ _Yuuuuuuuuri, oh Yuuuuuuuri, come here and I’ll hold you in my strong archeologist arms_!” Chris said in a sing-song tone, one hand around Victor’s shoulders and one hand painting wide arches in the air.

“Sometimes I wonder why we are friends,” Victor said, glaring at Chris.

“You know, sometimes I wonder the same, because you are no fun at all,” Chris said, poking his tongue out teasingly.

Yuuri’s text messages turned out to be fairly frequent and also a lot like his letters earlier: long and rambling. Sometimes the texts were just a stream of thoughts, in others Yuuri asked Victor’s views on things. Sometimes Yuuri sent photos of things he had noticed around the city, like posters and funny signs and street art. One time he sent a photo of a tiled bathroom wall with a note written on it in black marker.

‘ _Some things stay imutable_ ,’ the note declared. ‘ _< − Like your shitty spelling_,’ someone had replied on the next tile over. Victor grinned at the photo and sent a string of laughing emojis in reply.

By Wednesday, Victor was trying his best to not to _beg_ Yuuri to meet him again. He was already contemplating the best wording for asking Yuuri to see him again, but all his options seemed to land him in the exact same position: begging pathetically like a dog beside the dinner table. And Victor decided that it was not the time to throw dignity out the window just yet. Perhaps the following day, though…

However, during his lunch break there was a buzz in his pocket. Victor pulled his phone out of his pocket and tossed the rest of his sandwich carelessly aside as he saw the message was from Yuuri.

 

_Are you at the museum today?_

 

Victor replied so quickly that it was almost embarrassing.

_Yeah, until five. Why? :)_

Yuuri’s reply was almost as quick, though, so Victor decided not to worry about the embarrassment factor.

_If I come over, do I get to see the mummies in daylight?_

 

Victor’s stomach made a little happy dance inside him.

_Of course!_

_What time are you coming over?_

 

There was a pause in the messages, but eventually the phone buzzed again.

 

_Expect me when you see me._

 

Victor rolled his eyes at the cliché response, but either way, he wanted to jump up and down, because he had not scared Yuuri away. Yuuri was coming to meet him at work!

Victor was working in one of the back rooms during the afternoon, but he kept sneaking out into the hallway to see if Yuuri had arrived. The museum wasn’t exactly busy, but there were quite a few tourists wandering around the exhibitions. Victor resisted the urge to show Yuuri’s picture from Phichit’s Instagram to the passing tourists to ask them if they had seen him.

Naturally, when the text message came, it was when Victor was elbows deep in packaging peanuts. Also, there was a smudge of red on his chin from the marker he was using for his checklist on the crates that were destined to leave for Washington D.C. in a couple of days.

 

_I’m at the mummies_ , Yuuri’s text read.

 

“Блять, блять, блять,” Victor cursed under his breath in the bathroom as he tried to wipe the red smear off his face and locate the static styrofoam pieces he was sure were currently lurking everywhere on his body.

The red marker was waterproof. _Of course_ it was waterproof. The skin on Victor’s jaw was raw and irritated when he was finally done rubbing the smear off. It was not a good look. He cursed a couple more times colorfully in Russian and gave up, heading out of the bathroom.

When Victor got to the Ancient Egypt section, Yuuri was standing near the wall in the mummy room, looking at a display explaining hieroglyphs. Victor stopped in the doorway to take in the sight. Yuuri was wearing blue jeans and a plain white t-shirt. His hair wasn’t gelled back this time, and currently it was messily sticking in all possible directions and falling down his forehead, almost reaching the blue rims of his glasses. Victor stepped into the room and paced over to the hieroglyph display.

“Hello,” Victor said with a smile.

Yuuri looked to his side where Victor was standing, and his eyes fixed on Victor’s chin for a second. He didn’t comment on the near-skinless spot that the scrubbing of the permanent marker had left behind, though. “Hey,” he said. “What’s that under your collar?”

Victor looked down and flipped the collar of his button-up shirt, finding a piece of styrofoam clinging onto the underside and peeking out. “Oh, dammit. I thought I got all those packaging peanuts off,” he muttered, detaching the offending piece and pushing it into his pocket. “I was packaging some stuff when you texted, so that’s why I look like…” he motioned up and down his body.

“A human?” There was a small teasing glint in Yuuri’s eyes.

Victor stared. Yuuri was so unpredictable – at times so shy and awkward and yet, beneath it there was a sense of humor Victor could definitely appreciate.

“Yeah, I have bad days too, as you can see,” Victor said jokingly, running his fingers through his hair.

Yuuri smiled in the direction of the hieroglyphs.

Victor nodded toward the display. “Oh, that reminds me. Thank you for the notebook you left in the PO Box! I love it.”

Yuuri bowed his head just slightly, but Victor thought he looked pleased. “You’re welcome. I assume you’re familiar with the story about the Eye of Horus?”

“No, never heard of it,” Victor deadpanned.

Yuuri shoved his arm. The gesture was so playful and surprising in its familiarity that Victor could just laugh stupidly.

“So, does this count as the other half of the first date?” Victor asked, side-glancing at Yuuri.

There was just the slightest blush tinting Yuuri’s cheeks. “Maybe?”

“Do you maybe want to go somewhere else, where the company is a bit more lively than these folks?” Victor pointed his thumb behind him where the mummies were lying in their eternal sleep.

“Did you still have work to do?” Yuuri asked uncertainly.

“Nothing I can’t finish tomorrow,” Victor assured. It was almost four PM, and he was allowed to clock out at four, even though he usually stayed until five working on his dissertation. “I just need to go grab my stuff from my office.”

Yuuri tilted his head curiously. “Can I see your office?”

Victor laughed. “Um, sure. There’s not much to see, though.”

He led Yuuri downstairs to his tiny room. When Victor opened the door and went inside, Yuuri stood in the doorway because they couldn’t both fit into the room comfortably at the same time. Victor shoved his laptop into his briefcase and grabbed his blazer from the backrest of the chair. Yuuri snorted softly at something, and Victor followed the line of his gaze to the green bottle, still sitting on the corner of Victor’s desk.

“It’s my keepsake,” Victor said. “From the time a strange Writer came into my life.”

Yuuri looked away, but he was smiling.

They walked out the side door and across the courtyard. At the gates, they stopped for a moment to watch the stream of people and cars passing by, trying to decide which way to go.

“So, you said you’re from a smaller place?” Victor said when they were walking in the opposite direction along the street that was running parallel to the one Victor usually took home.

Yuuri looked thoughtful for a moment. “Yeah. Hasetsu, in Japan.”

It took Victor a second to realize that Yuuri had actually finally answered a direct question about himself. Victor felt gleeful. “Hasetsu?” he repeated. “I don’t think I’ve heard of that.”

“That’s no surprise. It’s a small town on the south-west coast.”

They walked down the street, talking about nothing in particular and pointing small details of their surroundings to one another every now and then. People streamed past them, staring down at their phones, listening to music and checking their twitter and whatnot. Victor tilted his head at the sight, thinking that he used to be one of those people, going along with the swarm and never stopping to look around.

“I wonder what age it is when we begin to lose our childlike amazement toward the little things,” Yuuri mused. “Look at that toddler, she is full of awe because a pigeon just wobbled past. None of the adults even glance at the bird.”

Victor looked in the direction Yuuri nodded. It was true, most of people didn’t pay much attention to their surroundings. He watched as a teen almost stepped onto the crosswalk on a red light, to be pulled back by the hood by one of his friends; only then did he look up from his phone.

The June afternoon sun was hot. Victor soon took off his blazer and tossed it over his shoulder, and his hand felt clammy around the handle of his briefcase.

“Not to complain or anything, but I’m voting we go somewhere that has air-conditioning for a while. Otherwise I’ll melt into a puddle soon.” Victor opened the topmost button of his shirt.

They ended up in a small coffee shop. Victor watched as Yuuri ordered iced tea, and he smiled as he remembered Phichit’s order from when they met at the park.

Victor stepped in to place his order right after Yuuri. “Can I pay for yours as well?” he asked.

Yuuri looked like he wanted to argue, but nodded in the end. “I’ll get the next one, then,” he said.

Victor grinned at his wallet as he dug out a twenty. That meant there would _be_ a next time, so he wasn’t going to argue. Only, next time Victor would still pay. He was only a museum research assistant, but he was pretty sure whatever he earned exceeded the income of a college student.

The coffee shop was refreshingly cool after the sun-heated sidewalks. They sat by the window and watched the city life outside. Victor sipped on his iced latte through his straw, and on the opposite side of the table Yuuri was doing the same with is iced tea.

“You know, one of the things that revealed Phichit wasn’t you was the latte he ordered when he came to meet me that day,” Victor said, looking at Yuuri’s drink. “Well, that and the fact that he didn’t behave like the secretive Writer I was expecting.”

Yuuri laughed. “Yeah, it was probably a bad idea to send Phichit in my place. He’s nothing like me.”

“I kind of noticed,” Victor said.

“We’re like yin and yang in a sense,” Yuuri said with a smile. “Phichit is light and happy and positive and I’m somewhere at the other end of the spectrum.”

Victor glanced at Yuuri from under his bangs. “Yet he still tried to pretend to be you. It was kind of funny, actually. Like I thought I’d gone crazy, because the written text didn’t correspond to the real-life person in any way.”

Yuuri smiled wider. “I can imagine.”

Victor poked the ice cubes in his latter with his straw. “Can I ask, why didn’t you come to meet me that day?”

Yuuri’s smile disappeared. Victor wanted to kick himself for that, but he also wanted to know. He wanted to know why Yuuri stood him up after suggesting the meeting himself. He wanted to know if Yuuri had even wanted to meet him in the first place. He wanted to know everything there was to know about Yuuri.

“I wanted to come,” Yuuri said quietly. “But that day…” His voice faded altogether, and he swallowed. Then he looked up at Victor, and there was something that resembled determination in his expression. “That day was not a good day for me. And when I say not good, I mean it. Can we please just leave it at that for now?”

“Of course.” Victor looked down at the ice cubes slowly disappearing in his latte.

Victor thought about what Yuuri had written about people residing tightly inside their own bubbles for the most time. He had a feeling that even though Yuuri was actively looking outside his own bubble and into other people’s bubbles, he still had a difficult time letting others see into his. He was hiding himself from prying eyes in a way that he must have perfected over the years. Victor swirled his straw in his drink and watched as the ice moved in a circular motion around the edges of the glass.

“Hey, I didn’t mean to kill the conversation,” Yuuri said, breaking the silence.

“Well, I guess it’s my fault for being so damn curious about you,” Victor sighed.

Yuuri shook his head slightly. “Really, Victor. I am not that interesting.”

Victor stared at Yuuri, unable to grasp why the reply had sounded so weird. It wasn’t the first time Yuuri had claimed that he wasn’t very interesting.

Then he realized it was the first time Yuuri had said his name out loud.

Victor rather liked how he said it, the consonants piling out in a staccato that was so different from the rounded way Americans said the name. It almost resembled the way the name was pronounced in Russian, but it wasn’t quite the same. The way Yuuri said Victor’s name was something entirely different, exotic. Victor liked how it sounded.

Victor realized he was still staring and now Yuuri was staring back, his eyebrows furrowed questioningly.

“Sorry, I just really like the way it sounds when you say my name,” Victor said, shrugging. Why bother lying about it?

There was that blush again. It began as ghosting pink spots around Yuuri’s cheeks but it quickly spread all the way to his ears. It was fascinating to watch.

Yuuri busied himself with the rest of his iced tea, and Victor looked at him sipping it through the straw. Victor leaned his chin into his hand, elbow resting on the table, eyes studying Yuuri, who was meticulously poking his straw through an ice cube that had melted into a ring shape. Yuuri was glancing in his direction every now and then, but mostly he was looking down into his tea or out the window.

It was interesting how Yuuri could express himself so fluidly in writing and so poorly in spoken words.

“So, that book you want to write?” Victor finally said.

Yuuri’s head snapped in his direction. “What about it?”

“Have you already started writing it?” Victor asked.

Yuuri sighed. “Not really, it’s just this idea in my head…”

“Start writing it. Today.” Victor looked at Yuuri. “Otherwise it might remain a great idea in your head for the rest of your life.”

“I—“ Yuuri looked confused. “Okay?”

“What kind of a novel will it be?” Victor asked.

“A thriller, I think.” Yuuri bit his lower lip lightly. “A mystery.”

“Sounds interesting. And I definitely want to read your book, so I hope you start writing soon.”

“Mhmm,” Yuuri mumbled.

“So, change of topic: walking around and sitting in a coffee shop doesn’t even count as _quarter_ of a date in my opinion, so what should we do next?” Victor glanced at Yuuri.

Yuuri shrugged. “I don’t know. What do you want to do?”

Victor shrugged back at him.

After an exhausting game of _‘I don’t know, what do **you** want to do?_ ’ they ended up walking around some more.

The city was teeming with life, but somehow it felt like they were alone in their own bubble. Victor could almost see the imaginary boundaries that separated them from the rest of the people, but he wasn’t quite sure if their bubbles had merged together or only barely touching at the edges.

When they stopped at a red light, the people flocking around them pushed Yuuri almost flush to Victor’s side. The forced intimacy didn’t bother Victor, but Yuuri’s expression was impossible to read. Victor decided to cautiously test the boundaries of his bubble in relation to Yuuri’s. He slid the back of his hand against Yuuri’s, just the barest contact of skin on skin. It brought a visible reaction; Yuuri tensed and swallowed, but didn’t pull away. Victor wasn’t entirely sure if it was due to the fact that with the people packed beside the crosswalk there wasn’t much room to step away, but he left his hand where it was, knuckles brushing gently over the back of Yuuri’s hand.

When the light turned green, it was Yuuri who made the transition and slipped his hand around Victor’s, lacing their fingers delicately together.

Victor followed Yuuri blindly across the intersection, because he could not concentrate on anything else besides the warmth radiating from where Yuuri’s hand touched his. Victor marveled at the sensation of Yuuri’s fingers intertwined with his, the slight movement of their hands as they stepped in pace over the white-painted stripes on the asphalt.

As they had crossed the street, just as quickly as the touch had begun, it ended. Yuuri’s hand slid away and they continued walking as separate entities once more.

Victor stared at Yuuri, and Yuuri was pointedly looking ahead as they continued down the street. The tips of his ears looked a little pink, though. “If you keep doing that, you’re gonna walk into something,” Yuuri finally said, casting a glance at Victor.

Their eyes met only for a brief second, but Victor was sure there was a mischievous gleam in Yuuri’s eyes.

“You’re not playing fair,” Victor muttered under his breath.

Yuuri’s laughter was light. “I never said I was fair,” he replied.

“I think I’ve heard that one before,” Victor said, rolling his eyes.

There was a silence for a moment. They were walking along the long side of the block. Victor looked up at the buildings as they walked, the walls reaching up and towering above them.

“What are you thinking about?” Yuuri asked.

“About how we never usually look up when we walk. There’s no reason to.”

“True.”

“What are you thinking about?” Victor asked in return.

“About what I’m going to be thinking tomorrow,” Yuuri said cryptically.

“And what are you going to be thinking tomorrow?” Victor continued.

“I haven’t got a clue,” Yuuri said airily. “I forgot my crystal ball at home.”

Victor had to laugh. Yuuri was so good at this. He wondered if it got tiring, dodging questions like arrows all the time.

When they came to another crosswalk, Victor spotted the side-glance Yuuri threw in his direction. He quickly swapped his briefcase to his other hand so it hung on the opposite side from where Yuuri was standing. When the light turned green, Yuuri’s hand found his again, and they skipped across the street hand in hand, smiling. It felt like a game of sorts, where the touches were restricted to certain circumstances. It was wonderful and hilarious and awkward, and Victor loved every second of it.

Eventually they made their way to a subway station where Yuuri could take the train home. They stood at the entrance to the station, awkwardly facing each other. Victor was still carrying his briefcase, and he knew that the first thing he was going to do after Yuuri left was to go buy a new one with a cross-body strap so he could just sling it over his shoulder, because carrying it around was a pain.

Victor extended his free hand, palm up, just a little bit. The gesture was an offer, but one Yuuri wouldn’t have to take unless he wanted to.

Yuuri stepped closer, and his hand slid over Victor’s. Victor looked down at the hand in his, cautiously running his thumb along the side of Yuuri’s palm. He could feel his heartbeat thrumming in his ears, loud and irregular.

“You know, I still don’t count this as a whole date,” Victor murmured.

Yuuri looked up at him, tilting his head to the side. “Is that so?”

“Yes,” Victor said emphatically, holding the gaze. “So we’re going to have to see each other again.”

“That sounds like a threat. Or a promise.”

“Which one do you think it is?” Victor asked, and his eyes slid down from Yuuri’s eyes to his lips. Yuuri’s mouth was slightly open, his lips chapped but still so inviting.

Before he could contemplate on what he _wanted_ to happen at the end of this not-quite-half-a-date, Yuuri stepped even closer, their intertwined hands pushing into Victor’s abdomen.

The kiss was just a brief touch on his lips, but it was there.

Yuuri stepped back just as quickly, letting go of Victor’s hand. “I’ll hold you to that _promise_ , then,” he noted. Then Yuuri turned and skipped down the stairs and disappeared into the station.

Victor stared after him, surprised.

Every time he thought he came even close to understanding Yuuri on some level, Yuuri threw him off completely.

Victor liked being surprised, though. Especially when it involved getting kissed.

Victor had a long walk home, as they had been going in the opposite direction than where his apartment was. For a moment Victor considered just taking the subway or hailing a cab, but in the end he decided against it. Walking was a good way to clear his head and let some thoughts roam free.

Calling Chris was another way of clearing his head, of course.

“ _Vitya, slow down_ ,” Chris said after Victor had rattled out the entire story about their not-quite half a date with hand-holding and a kiss in one breath. “ _I don’t understand why you keep talking about half-dates and quarter-dates. Like, what even are those?_ ”

“Well, he called our first meeting at the museum opening more like a _half_ of a date, so then today was the second half of the first date, right? Only in my opinion it was more like a quarter of a date because we didn’t really do much…” Victor dodged a trashcan that had suddenly sprouted up from the pavement in front of him. “So now I need to make it up by coming up with a date that actually counts as a date.”

“ _Uh-huh_.” Chris sounded like he still didn’t understand one bit.

“Anyway, he came over to the museum today, and then we went out,” Victor started over. “Like, we just walked and then went to a coffee shop and walked some more. But he held my hand and kissed me before he left.” He was aware of how giddy he sounded, but he didn’t care.

“ _Oh dear Lord, am I talking to a grown man or a fifth-grader?_ ” Chris asked incredulously.

Victor wasn’t quite sure. All he knew was that he hadn’t felt this _alive_ in years. It was the strangest feeling, like everything he experienced was just a little bit more amplified. Every visual just a bit brighter, every sound just a little sharper, every taste and touch just a little more robust. It felt awkward and exhilarating and exactly like when Victor had been fourteen and had his first actual crush.

Victor had already fallen for the person writing him those anonymous letters a while ago.

Now he was falling for the _person_ behind the letters just as hard.

And yet he still had no clue what kind of a person Yuuri actually was. But he was interested in finding that out. It was like a game of hide-and-seek, or playing detective to find out what was hiding underneath Yuuri’s in-depth thoughts and roundabout answers about himself.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you have any questions, comments or whatever, ask me on my [tumblr](https://worldofcopperwings.tumblr.com/) or in the comments below. All feedback is much appreciated! Also my ask box is open, hmu with anything, fic-related or not. :) 
> 
> Thanks to [merkitty](https://merkitty.tumblr.com/) and [victuurimaker](http://victuurimaker.tumblr.com/) for helping me out with this.


	8. while the night still hides the withering dawn

Life continued on its usual track, aside from the occasional texting back and forth with Yuuri. Victor was busy at work, which was good because the days went by much quicker when he had something to do. When he wasn’t busy running Celestino’s errands he was typing his dissertation. Victor knew that most of the text he produced in his frenzy was utter shit, but the editing would come later. Now it was more important to write at least something, because he was afraid this lack of motivation wasn’t going to pass on its own. So Victor forced himself to work on the dissertation, even when he didn’t feel like it. He noticed that getting started was the difficult part. Once he got into it, he could read articles and study pictures of vases for hours on end.

Victor tried to think about what he wanted to do with Yuuri for their date. Well, he wanted to do everything and anything with Yuuri, but that was beside the point. He needed to come up with something. He kind of wanted to invite Yuuri over to his place, but there was just one problem with that: Victor was kind of messy and didn’t clean his apartment very often.

One afternoon, Victor spent five hours cleaning up his apartment before he even dared to think about inviting Yuuri over. He changed the sheets, cleaned the table from the research papers and cleared the cork board of Yuuri’s messages. It wouldn’t do to have his notice board looking like that of a crazy stalker. He stashed the messages into a drawer in his closet and piled the research-related papers on one of the shelves, where they sat next to a pile of t-shirts. He really needed to get a desk with some drawers, because shoving everything into his closet was not going to work in the long run.

Victor did the dishes and cleaned the entire kitchen. In the process he found various cooking utensils he didn’t even remember he owned, so perhaps it had been time to clean up, too. He emptied the fridge from the food items that were no longer recognizable and wiped the shelves. He discarded the enormous stack of pizza boxes that had been piling up in the corner of the kitchenette.

Victor dusted every surface in the apartment, vacuumed the floors and scrubbed the bathroom spotless. He wobbled with his hamper down to the building’s laundry room and washed pretty much every piece of textile he owned. When he was finally done, the apartment looked like no one, let alone _Victor_ , lived there. As a final touch, Victor tossed a pillow on the middle of the bed and thought it all looked like straight from a home décor magazine. He even took pictures with his phone because he was quite sure that the apartment wouldn’t look like this ever again.

When Chris came over the following day, he whistled upon noticing the state of the apartment. “You’re gonna give the wrong impression with this, though,” Chris remarked, sitting down on the couch.

“What do you mean?” Victor asked, wrinkling his brow.

“Yuuri’s going to think that you’re a _clean_ person or something, and _boy_ will he be disappointed when the truth comes out,” Chris laughed.

“Well, technically I haven’t invited him over yet, so I don’t know if he actually gets to witness the apartment’s current clean phase.” Victor sat down beside Chris on the couch.

“Oh, right, because your dating is like two school-girls hitting it off. You hold hands and giggle and talk about how you feel,” Chris retorted, giving Victor a shove. “It’s so adorable it makes me want to vomit.” He made a gagging noise, and Victor shoved him back.

“Why don’t you just worry about your own love life and leave mine alone,” Victor said airily.

“So, are you gonna invite him over?” Chris asked, completely ignoring Victor’s request to leave his love life be. Victor hadn’t expected anything less.

“How do I invite him over without making it sound like I’m trying to seduce him, though?” Victor asked, brushing his hair off his face. It was getting way too long, soon he would _have_ to get the haircut he had been thinking about since before meeting Yuuri. That, or he would have to invest in some hair ties.

“But you _are_ trying to seduce him,” Chris said, palming his face in theatrical frustration.

Well, obviously at some point, but he didn’t want Yuuri to freak out about coming over.

“You’re the worst at giving advice that doesn’t have anything to do with sex,” Victor groaned. “And _don’t_ say that everything is about sex,” he continued when Chris drew in a breath as if to say something.

Chris shrugged. “It is, though. Everything in this world revolves around sex, and once you understand that you’ll have a lot easier time trying to get people to sleep with you.”

“Oh, so you think it’s easy for you to get people to sleep with you, then?” Victor said, poking his finger somewhere in the general vicinity of Chris’s ribs.

“My record is almost spotless,” Chris declared. “Only one failed conquest.”

Victor knew he was the one failed conquest, but Chris had been over that for years now. It was a running joke between them that Chris could get anyone to sleep with him, with one exception.

“But what if my goal isn’t to get him to sleep with me, but to get to know him better first?” Victor said.

Chris looked at him like was some kind of a prude. “Well, then you’re asking for advice from the wrong person,” he retorted.

“Oh, _do_ I know that,” Victor sighed, rolling his eyes.

They sat in silence for a moment, but with Chris silence wasn’t awkward anymore. They had been friends for so long that silence was a natural part of hanging out. Victor wondered if he’d ever get to that point with Yuuri, where stretched silences felt like part of being together and not something that needed to be filled with talking.

“I’m gonna text him,” Victor said, grabbing his phone.

Chris lurked around his shoulder while Victor typed in the message, tossing in suggestions every now and then. Victor mostly ignored the suggestions, because it was Chris who was giving them, so they were something along the lines of: “Tell him his ass looks good. _Does_ his ass look good by the way?”

“Bye, Chris!” Victor shoved Chris to the other end of the couch and continued typing.

 

_So I was thinking we could order takeaway and watch a movie at my place when you have time. I’m free all weekend if that works for you._

 

Victor stared at the message, his thumb hovering over the send key. Then he deleted the text without sending. “I can’t send that, it’s way too _netflix and chill_.”

He started over.

 

_Hey, so do you have plans for this weekend? I’m pretty sure I still owe you one and a quarter date or something._

 

This time he sent the message, and then spent the next five minutes annoying Chris to death with his constant sighs and by tapping his foot against the floor nervously.

“Chill, Vitya,” Chris said and slammed his hand on Victor’s knee when it started bouncing nervously.

The phone buzzed. Victor slid the screen lock open and looked at the message.

 

_I have plans with Phichit Friday night. We’re gonna check out this new thai restaurant._

 

Victor sighed. There was no mention of Saturday plans, but this didn’t look like an enthusiastic reply to his suggestion.

The phone buzzed again.

 

_You can join us if you want :)_

 

Victor realized Chris was looking over his shoulder. He gave the other man a shove with his elbow. “How many times do I have to tell you to stop reading my messages over my shoulder?” Victor grumbled.

“Well, are you going to third-wheel on their best-friend date?” Chris asked, ignoring Victor’s question.

Victor sighed. “I don’t know. Should I?”

“Well, you can always take him home afterwards, show him how neat your bathroom is and let him marvel at the spotless state of the apartment, because that’s the last time he’ll see it,” Chris laughed.

“The apartment or the clean state of it?”

“Depends on how badly you manage to screw it up,” Chris said, grinning.

“Encouraging,” Victor huffed. “Don’t you have any faith in my wooing skills?”

Chris blinked. “Your _what_ now?”

Victor shoved him for the trillionth time. And then shoved him once again for good measure.

Chris fell back into the other end of the couch, laughing.

 

~

 

On Friday, Victor headed home from work to change his clothes. Then he walked over to the subway station and took the northbound train. Victor checked the address from Yuuri’s message and fed it to his GPS while on the train. The map told him there would be a seven-minute walk from the station to the restaurant. Victor glanced at the time. He hoped there wouldn’t be any delays, because he was running short on time at this point.

Once outside the station, Victor looked around, then down at his phone that told him to walk down to the next corner and take a left from there. Victor walked briskly to the corner and continued following the instructions from the GPS.

He turned a corner, then down the street for a bit, another corner to the right. The restaurant was supposed to be somewhere around—

“Victor!” A voice made his eyes snap up from the phone.

Up ahead, he saw two figures standing in front of a restaurant.

Phichit was waving his hands. Victor waved back and put his phone into his pocket as he walked over. Yuuri was standing with his hands in his jacket pockets. He was wearing black jeans and a blue shirt underneath his white jacket. His hair was tousled-up and his eyes were looking at Victor from behind his glasses. Victor took in the sight, and resisted the urge to pull Yuuri into his arms.

“Hi! Am I late?” Victor asked.

“Not at all, we just arrived,” Phichit beamed. “So nice that you decided to join us!”

“You sure you don’t mind me crashing the party?” Victor asked.

“The more the merrier, right?” Phichit said happily. “C’mon, let’s go!” He led them into the restaurant.

“Hi,” Victor said to Yuuri as they walked in behind Phichit. “It’s good to see you again.”

“You too,” Yuuri said. There was a small smile on his face that went up to his eyes. That was probably a good sign.

Victor held the door for Yuuri, and their fingers brushed when Yuuri walked past him. Victor wasn’t entirely sure if the contact was accidental or not.

Phichit was chatting with the maître d' animatedly in Thai as they waited for a waiter to come take them to their table. Victor listened to the rising and falling intonation and the strange strings of consonant, intrigued. It didn’t resemble any language he knew.

“Do you understand any of this?” Victor asked Yuuri.

“Some of it,” Yuuri said hesitantly. “Phichit has taught me some basics, but right now they are talking way too fast. I’m only managing to grasp a word here and there.”

Phichit stopped talking with the smiling maître d' and turned to them. “Yuuri is too modest. He’s an excellent student. My Japanese skills aren’t at all as impressive as his Thai is.”

Yuuri grinned. “I guess.”

Victor tilted his head. “Can you say something in Japanese?” he asked.

Yuuri looked mischievous. He shot a rapid burst of consonants and vowels in Victor’s direction and smiled.

“What was that?” Victor said.

“I said that I could basically say anything to your face and you wouldn’t understand a word,” Yuuri shrugged.

“He also said you look good,” Phichit supplied helpfully. “I might not understand a lot, but that I caught.”

“Phichit!” Yuuri turned to glare at Phichit.

Phichit spread his hands innocently.

Victor laughed. “ _Well, I think you look absolutely gorgeous as well_ ,” he said to Yuuri in Russian.

“What was that?” Yuuri furrowed his brow in confusion.

“That,” Victor said melodramatically, “was Russian.”

Yuuri rolled his eyes. “I got _that_. But what did you say?”

“That’s my secret,” Victor said and winked.

The waiter arrived to take them to the table just then. It was a table for four next to the window. Victor slid to the window seat on the other side and smiled as Yuuri took the seat opposite to him. Phichit sat next to Yuuri and they got menus from the waiter. Phichit said something in Thai, and the waiter nodded.

“Did you just order us rice wine?” Yuuri asked, looking at Phichit.

“Hey, I just turned 21, I can’t enjoy it even a little?” Phichit retorted.

“What’s rice wine?” Victor asked.

“It’s basically beer,” Yuuri explained.

“Then why is it called _wine_?” Victor asked, confused.

“Because Thai people are confusing,” Yuuri explained. “Ow,” he then said as Phichit punched his arm lightly.

“I ordered some for you as well, I hope that’s okay?” Phichit turned to smile at Victor.

“Sure, I’ll give it a try,” Victor said, looking down at the menu. “And since you’re the resident expert here, I’m gonna ask you _all_ the questions about Thai food, which I know next to nothing about.”

Phichit explained some of the dishes to him and recommended something Victor couldn’t pronounce correctly even though he tried multiple times.

“No, you need to dip the intonation in the middle,” Phichit explained. “Try again.”

“I give up,” Victor said. “Thai people and their language are indeed confusing.”

Phichit stuck his tongue out at Victor and then laughed, muttering something under his breath.

“He just insulted you in Thai,” Yuuri said helpfully.

“Oh, I got that, even if I didn’t understand the words,” Victor said.

“Basically he called you a buffalo,” Yuuri explained.

Victor laughed. “Uh-huh. How is that an insult?”

“Cause you’re _slow_ ,” Phichit explained. “Buffalos are slow and stupid.”

“Thanks, I guess,” Victor said, rolling his eyes.

The waiter came back with the rice wine and they ordered their food. Victor examined the bottle with interest, but the complex alphabet was impossible to read. “And they say Cyrillics are difficult,” Victor said, shaking his head.

They poured the beers into glasses and held them up. “What should we toast to?” Yuuri asked.

Phichit grinned. “To Writer and Stranger,” he said with a mischievous tone.

Yuuri rolled his eyes. “Fine.” They clinked their glasses together.

When the food came, it turned out to be excellent and the rice wine was interesting in flavor. Phichit took a lot of photos throughout the night.

“Are you posting these on Instagram?” Victor asked, sipping his drink.

“Duh,” Phichit said. “Hashtag dinner, hashtag rice wine, hashtag thai food.”

“He’s a social media addict,” Yuuri said affectionately, ruffling Phichit’s hair.

“I can see that,” Victor said. He pulled out his phone to see the photos Phichit had posted. There were several already. “Whoa, my hair is a mess,” Victor said after seeing one of the photos.

“I think it looks fine,” Yuuri volunteered from the other side of the table. He sipped his drink, and Victor got caught staring at the red flush on Yuuri’s face, probably due to the alcohol. It was adorable.

“So what about you?” Victor asked, tilting his head. “You’re not on Instagram?”

Yuuri shook his head. “Or well, I am, but there aren’t that many photos on my account and I don’t really post much.”

“What’s your username? You get the honor of being the second person I follow, photos or not,” Victor said.

“Wow, I’m flattered,” Yuuri chuckled. “Here, let me,” Yuuri extended his hand to grab the phone. He typed his username in the search box and hit ‘follow’ on the account. “It’s a private account, so I need to accept you.” He handed the phone back and took his own from his pocket.

“Ah, what a time to be alive, everyone is socializing by staring at their phones,” Phichit said, putting his phone down on the table.

“You’re one to talk,” Yuuri shot back good-humoredly.

“Maybe we should play that game where everyone puts their phone in the middle of the table screen down and the first one who checks their phone pays the bill,” Victor joked.

“I’m not playing,” Phichit said immediately.

“Yeah, because you’d lose,” Yuuri remarked.

“Duh,” Phichit said as if it was obvious.

Phichit kept ordering more rice wine, and even though it wasn’t very strong it was enough to give Victor a slight tingling buzz. His face also felt flushed and hot, but that might have been just from tasting Phichit’s food. Phichit had ordered the hottest thing on the menu, and just one bite from it had been enough to send Victor to his glass of beer, coughing and gasping. Phichit had laughed and spooned the food happily into his mouth, and it seemed like a superhuman feat to be able to eat _that_ with a straight face.

Yuuri’s face was flushed red and his expression seemed more relaxed, open. Yuuri kept looking at Victor from across the table, and at some point Victor was sure there was a leg sliding against his. Yuuri’s face was unreadable, but the foot that had been against Victor’s disappeared so quickly that in his dazed state Victor wasn’t sure if it had been there to begin with.

After dessert, they got the bill. Victor offered to pay all of it, but he was voted down two to one, and so they all ended up paying their own bills. Victor pouted a bit, but cheered up when the foot under the table touched his again. Victor looked up and sat Yuuri looking directly at him, eyes dark and pupils wide. Suddenly not being able to pay for Yuuri’s bill didn’t seem like such a big deal.

They exited the restaurant and walked around in the warm summer night for a bit. They blocked the entire sidewalk as they paced leisurely, Yuuri in the middle.

“So, now what?” Victor asked.

They ended up in a nearby bar, playing Trivial Pursuit the place had for patrons. It turned out to be a very evenly matched game between the three of them. Yuuri and Victor were equally good at getting history-related questions right, but Phichit knew all about sports and entertainment. Victor’s knowledge about art newer than ancient Roman times was pretty limited because he had only taken that one course of art history in college, but Yuuri aced all art questions without blinking an eye. Victor drank a few whisky sours and finally gathered enough courage to ask Yuuri to come over to his place afterwards.

Phichit’s face was priceless. “Of course he’ll come!” he chimed in before Yuuri had time to say anything.

“ _Phichit_!” Yuuri hissed, but he didn’t look entirely displeased.

“I mean, you don’t have to come if you don’t want to, but it would be nice,” Victor said. “And sorry for not inviting you, Phichit. No offense meant.”

Phichit raised his hands and waved them dismissively. “None taken.”

 

~

 

It was almost two in the morning when they arrived in Victor’s apartment. The remnants of the rice wine and whisky sours were making Victor’s thoughts slightly fuzzy around the edges and the alcohol in his system made it feel like there was a soft pillow around everything he touched. He’d tried to refrain from drinking too much, though, because he remembered a couple of college parties when that had occurred. Or more like he _didn’t_ remember; and Victor definitely wanted to remember this.

“Can I take your jacket?” Victor asked. Yuuri shrugged the jacket off and handed it to him.

Victor hung their jackets on a hook beside the front door and watched as Yuuri shuffled awkwardly around the living room in that way one did when coming to someone’s apartment for the first time. Yuuri took in the room, with the queen-sized bed in on corner, the table between the two windows on the opposite wall and the couch and TV in between. He walked over to the bookshelf and read the titles of the books, browsing the shelf with one finger running over the spines of the books, eventually picking up one to read the back cover. Victor stood leaning on the doorframe, taking in the sight. The scene was a pleasant one. Yuuri seemed to fit in Victor’s tiny apartment like he belonged there.

Yuuri put the book back into the shelf and glanced over at Victor.

“Do you want anything to drink?” Victor offered, detaching himself from the doorframe.

“Water would be nice,” Yuuri shrugged. His face was still slightly red from the alcohol. He looked adorable in his flushed state.

Victor went into the kitchen and realized he had forgotten to put water bottles into the fridge. He dug two bottles from the case under the counter and returned to the living room. “I’m sorry, this water hasn’t been in the fridge so it’s kind of warm,” Victor said apologetically, handing the bottle to Yuuri.

“That’s okay,” Yuuri said, taking the offered bottle. Their fingers touched and Victor felt the contact like a jolt of electricity.

“I’m gonna put some music on,” Victor said, plopping down on the couch and dropping his unopened water bottle between his thigh and the armrest. He didn’t really have a table near the couch, but there was a wooden wine box beside the left armrest that could serve as one. Currently his laptop was resting on the box, so Victor dragged the wine box in front of the couch and opened the lid of the laptop. He typed the first thing he could think of into YouTube’s search box and pressed play on the video.

“What’s this?” Yuuri asked, sitting down next to Victor, holding his water bottle in his hand.

“Oh, it’s, um. 90s music?” Victor said. “Like from 1994 or so. Or 1995, can’t remember.” The song was a soft melody of guitar and strings.

“I thought the 90s were all electronic pop music,” Yuuri said, squinting at the screen. “And Britney Spears.”

“Most of it was,” Victor grinned. “From what I know at least.” He started typing into the search box. “Let’s find out: _‘90s hits’_.”

They went through a bunch of videos representing the hits of the decade, and Victor was unashamedly humming along to most of them.

“This feels so ancient, though,” Yuuri said, sipping his water thoughtfully.

“ _What_? How dare you! This is my childhood music,” Victor said, gaping at Yuuri. “C’mon, I’m not _that_ much older than you are.”

Yuuri’s eyes were fixed on the screen, but the corners of his mouth twitched slightly. Victor realized Yuuri was teasing him.

“Oh, you are so dead,” Victor said. He poked his finger into Yuuri’s side, causing a very satisfying squeal to emit from the other man. Victor did it again.

“Victor, my water will spill,” Yuuri warned with a laugh, squirming while he tried to screw the cap back on.

Victor backed off and waited nonchalantly until Yuuri put the bottle away, and then he attacked again. Apparently, Yuuri was ticklish. Victor ran his fingers over Yuuri’s sides, and Yuuri laughed and squealed and begged for him to stop. Victor grinned and continued tickling until Yuuri was even redder in the face and gasping for air.

Victor’s fingers suddenly stilled on Yuuri’s sides as he realized just how close they were to one another. Yuuri was slightly out of breath and his shirt had ridden up as he’d tried to squirm away from Victor’s tickling fingers. A strip of pale skin up to Yuuri’s bellybutton was revealed beneath the hem of the blue shirt, and Victor’s hand was currently resting just an inch away from the shirt’s hem. Victor’s eyes locked onto the expanse of bare skin for a second, then traveled up over Yuuri’s chest to his lips, slightly parted as Yuuri was breathing unevenly. Their faces were only inches apart.

Victor’s breath hitched in his throat, and his gaze slid up to Yuuri’s eyes. Yuuri’s pupils were blown wide, his eyes staring back at Victor unblinkingly.

_Okay?_ Victor asked with his eyes, leaning closer by an inch.

_Okay_ , Yuuri’s eyes replied, and Victor closed the gap between them.

Victor’s eyes slipped shut when their lips met. The kiss was tentative at first, Victor’s lips moving languidly against Yuuri’s. Yuuri tilted his head to the side and Victor deepened the kiss cautiously, marveling at the sensation of Yuuri’s lips on his. Yuuri tasted like water and like the sickly-sweet hard candy they’d gotten from the restaurant. It had come along with the check but they had just tried it on the way to Victor’s apartment when Yuuri had found the forgotten treats from his jacket pocket.

Victor’s left hand slid down Yuuri’s side until his fingers touched bare skin. Yuuri’s skin was warm and smooth under his hand. Victor brought his other hand up to cup the side of Yuuri’s face. The hand slid down to rest on Yuuri’s neck as the kiss got rougher, more intimate.

Yuuri made a small noise when Victor’s fingers pushed his shirt up even more. Victor stilled, opening his eyes and pulling back from the kiss a fraction of an inch. Yuuri’s eyes stared back at him and his breaths came in small gasps.

“Everything okay?” Victor asked.

“Yeah, just… my glasses are in the way,” Yuuri muttered.

“Well, that’s easily fixed,” Victor muttered, pulling back so he could grab the glasses and relocate them on top of the laptop’s keyboard. When Victor turned back, he stopped for a moment to stare at Yuuri, who was currently dragging his fingers through his messy hair and biting his lip. It was mesmerizing to watch. Victor leaned closer, watched Yuuri release his lower lip from between his teeth and looked up at him, blinking.

Victor wanted to kiss Yuuri again, but the disposal of the glasses had shifted the mood just slightly toward awkward, and so Victor simply tilted his head and looked at Yuuri. He studied the younger man’s features, wishing he could read Yuuri’s expressions better. Yuuri was staring back at him with wide eyes.

“So how bad is your eyesight exactly?” Victor asked to say something. The mood of the previous moment was ruined anyway. It was simultaneously annoyingly awkward and so exhilarating; being around a new person that he didn’t know all that well. It was a weird balancing act, where neither of them knew the other well enough to be able to read body language and expressions. As a result, they danced around each other cautiously, staying at a distance but all the time trying to figure out the rules of getting closer.

Yuuri shrugged at Victor’s question, shifting so his shirt covered most of his abdomen again. Victor pretended he wasn’t looking. “Well, I’m not going to walk into lamp posts if I forget my glasses at home when I go out, but I won’t be able to read store names from across the street either.”

“Can I try your glasses on?” Victor asked.

“Sure,” Yuuri said, sitting up straighter. His shirt came down all the way in the process, his skin once again hidden from sight. Victor sighed inwardly. He turned to grab the glasses from the laptop’s keyboard and carefully perched them on his nose.

It wasn’t as weird as he had imagined. It was kind of looking at everything through binoculars, even nearby objects. The details of the room looked just slightly too sharp in a way that felt like it would give him a headache if he continued wearing Yuuri’s glasses, but it wasn’t what Victor had expected.

“Huh. Interesting,” he said. “Well, how do I look?”

Yuuri leaned closer just a bit, and Victor’s heart picked up its pace before he realized Yuuri was just looking closer because Victor had his glasses.

“Good. You look good,” Yuuri said and smiled a little shakily.

Victor took the glasses off and was about to hand them over to Yuuri, when Yuuri leaned in all the way. Victor’s hand flew to the side so Yuuri’s glasses wouldn’t get crushed between them as their lips collided, a little bit off-center and messy. Half of Victor’s mind was wondering if the glasses would break if he just dropped them on the floor, while the other half was joyously concentrating on Yuuri’s lips on his. The kiss was a bit unsynchronized, a little off-balance and a lot messy, but it felt like the most amazing thing in the world.

_It’s like exploring_ , Victor thought a little later when the kiss faded away and they stayed close to one another, noses nearly touching, eyes locked and a little out of breath. Victor had kissed other people in his life before, and it still surprised him every time how _new_ it felt every time with a new person. It was like discovering kissing all over again, reinventing the slide of lips and tongue against one another, finding the common tune and matching the other person note for note. The principles of kissing were the same, of course, but it always felt so different when it was with someone he hadn’t kissed before.

Yuuri broke the eye contact eventually and reached for his water bottle on the floor beside the couch. Victor shuffled a bit awkwardly while Yuuri drank from the bottle, his adam’s apple bouncing up and down as he swallowed. When Yuuri put the bottle away, Victor handed the glasses back to him.

They ended up going back to YouTube for 80s hits. It became a game of sorts, where they tried to recall the corniest and cheesiest hits of the decade, all the while still dancing around each other with slight touches every now and then; a brush of thighs here, a touch of fingers there, and a slight case of wrestling when they both reached for the keys of the laptop at the same time and tried to type in the next song. Yuuri won eventually, and Victor glanced over at his side profile when he was typing, and there was an overwhelming sensation of tingling anticipation and happiness.

After they had exhausted their options on 80s hits, they moved on to funny dog videos. Victor started to feel like this was meant to be. They both liked dogs, were interested in history and liked reading and corny 80s hits. Victor could already picture their future together, involving a house somewhere, with a jacuzzi and a library room and two, maybe three dogs running around.

He told himself to snap out of it, because it was only the second date. But he couldn’t stop himself from daydreaming about it somewhere in the back of his mind.

Outside the apartment, the city fell quiet, although it never got completely silent. But even here at the heart of the city there was a few hours of lulled quietness in the dead of the night, between the time when people went home from clubs and others woke up for morning shifts.

Yuuri looked up from the laptop suddenly, blinking toward the windows. “Whoa. The sun is up,” he observed. There was surprise in his tone, like he hadn’t thought about staying so late.

“You wanna get some sleep?” Victor asked. The after-effects of the alcohol were making him tired, but somehow he didn’t want the day to end. And if they went to sleep, it would be the end of the date.

“I’m not really tired,” Yuuri said, but his yawn right after the words betrayed him. There was a warm feeling in Victor’s stomach. Perhaps Yuuri didn’t want the date to end either.

Victor laughed. “Oh, really? Maybe we should go to bed anyway, in case we fall asleep. I don’t know about you, being so _young_ and all, but if I sleep slouched on the couch I’ll wake up with a neck cramp like no other.”

They ended up lying sprawled on Victor’s bed, watching _Avatar_ at six in the morning. They were slumped up against the headboard, leaning against the pillows with the laptop sitting at the foot of the bed. Victor thought he had never started watching a movie at this hour before. He glanced over at Yuuri beside him, bleary-eyed and clearly tired, but there was a smile on Yuuri’s face nonetheless. Every time either one of them shifted just slightly, some part of their bodies brushed against one another. Victor was hyper-aware of Yuuri’s closeness; the slight pressure where their shoulders stayed in contact, the tiny sparks where Yuuri’s arm ghosted against his, the tickling sensation right above the neckline of his shirt where Yuuri’s messy black hair touched his skin.

At some point Victor drowsily laced his fingers with Yuuri’s and spent minutes staring down at their hands, the delicate touch sending sparks up his spine. On the laptop screen, blue aliens were fighting mean humans on a planet that was too pretty to be real, but Victor hardly paid any attention to the movie. He concentrated on the warmth radiating from his fingers up his arm and all the way to the pit of his stomach. Yuuri’s head shifted just slightly, dropping onto Victor’s shoulder. Victor sighed contentedly and closed his eyes. If he suddenly had the ability to freeze time, this was the moment he would freeze it to. The rest of eternity on his bed, holding Yuuri’s hand and Yuuri leaning his head against Victor’s shoulder, watching cheesy movies together and just _existing_.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I feel like I’m suffocating on sugar because _such fluff omg_. I want to thank everyone who has read, left kudos, commented and/or subscribed so far. Getting feedback on a story is always so wonderful. I’m enjoying reading your comments so much!  
>  -  
> The chapter title lyrics are from [While Your Lips Are Still Red](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RZRMootj_68) by Nightwish. The first 90’s song Victor puts on is [Glass Vase Cello Case](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R84rhFHb7Cs) by Tattle Tale. I played these both on a loop while writing and they are now forever branded as Victuuri kissing songs in my mind.  
> -  
> If you have any questions, ask me on my [tumblr](https://worldofcopperwings.tumblr.com/) or in the comments below. Come talk to me or ask me anything on tumblr, fic-related or otherwise! (I'm always on tumblr...:D)  
> As always, thanks to my lovely beta [merkitty](https://merkitty.tumblr.com/).


	9. loiter the whole day through and lose yourself in lines dissecting

Victor wasn’t sure when he had fallen asleep, but he was very aware of when and how he woke up.

He was lying on his back on the bed in his jeans and t-shirt, head against the mattress in a ditch between two pillows. He felt slightly sweaty in his clothes and kicked off the blanket that had tangled around his feet, but just then another kind of warmth caught his attention. There was an arm draped over his chest and light breaths falling against his hair. Victor glanced up to his side to see Yuuri’s face just inches from him, his mouth slightly open and breathing calmly against his temple. The arm around Victor’s chest was warm and heavy; the unsupported weight of someone in deep sleep.

Another glance down to the foot of the bed let Victor know that the laptop had shut down on its own at some point. Thankfully neither of them had kicked it off the bed during the night. He shifted just slightly, trying not to wake Yuuri up. He reached his hand here and there under the covers and beneath the pillows. He was sure his phone was in here somewhere. Finally, Victor found his phone lodged between the pillow and the mattress just above his right shoulder. He tapped the display to see the time.

It was almost one in the afternoon. For a moment Victor panicked, but then he remembered that he didn’t need to go to the museum today. There were a few things he needed to get done over the weekend, but it didn’t matter which day he got them done, so he could just as well go the next day. No problem.

Victor shifted again just slightly so he could see Yuuri’s face properly. The younger man was lying on his stomach, his left arm draped over Victor and his face close to Victor’s temple. Victor felt the warmth down the side of his leg where Yuuri was pressed against him from thigh to ankle.

Yuuri had disposed of his glasses at some point before falling asleep, Victor noticed. In sleep, Yuuri’s face was relaxed, expressions smoothed away by his peaceful slumber. Yuuri’s eyelashes fluttered just the tiniest bit as Victor watched him. Victor wasn’t sure if he was dreaming of something or waking up. Yuuri’s arm tightened just slightly around Victor, reflexively, and Victor smiled. So Yuuri was dreaming. _I wonder what he is dreaming about?_

Victor watched the regular rise and fall of Yuuri’s back along with his breaths and the slight movements of his body as he dreamed. Victor didn’t know how long he had been watching, but eventually Yuuri’s breaths against Victor’s hair became more irregular and the arm around him tightened even more. This was followed by a momentary stillness, during which Yuuri’s eyes opened slowly, blinked unfocusedly a few times and then closed again. The arm draped over Victor’s chest felt lighter, not like the dead weight of sleep anymore. Yuuri blinked again, slowly, and then a couple more times more rapidly, seemingly trying to force himself to wakefulness.

Watching Yuuri wake up was Victor’s new favorite thing.

The arm suddenly lifted from Victor’s chest and the pressure against his leg retreated. The loss of contact felt cold. Victor looked up at Yuuri, who had turned onto his back and was lying there, shirt ridden up his abdomen and an arm draped over his face.

“Morning,” Victor said cautiously.

Yuuri lifted the arm off his face and mumbled something in return. _Clearly not a morning person_ , Victor thought, filing the knowledge away in his mental data storage on Yuuri.

“Sorry if I tried to smother you,” Yuuri muttered. He sounded drowsy, like he still wasn’t completely awake.

“I wasn’t smothered in the slightest,” Victor beamed and sat up on the bed. “Or if I was, I liked it.”

There was a small noise from Yuuri’s direction that Victor couldn’t interpret.

Victor slid his feet to the floor and turned to watch Yuuri trying to collect himself. “Do you want breakfast?” Victor asked. “I don’t think I have anything here, but I can go get something from the corner deli.”

“No, I’m good, thanks,” Yuuri said. He sat up on the bed, looking disoriented. “Where are my glasses?”

Victor glanced around. “Um, I’m not sure. Here, let me look…” He lifted the pillows one by one and eventually found the blue-rimmed glasses under the last one. “Here they are,” he said, passing the glasses to Yuuri.

Yuuri put the glasses on and slid over to the foot of the bed. His eyes were still bleary and his hair was flattened on one side of his head while sticking out in all directions on the other. Victor stared. It was adorable beyond words. Victor wanted to ruffle Yuuri’s hair, but he wasn’t sure if it was wise to approach Yuuri. Who knew, he might be a grumpy morning person; best not to aggravate him.

To give Yuuri some time to adjust to his newly awakened state, Victor got up and padded into the bathroom. After flushing the toilet, he looked at himself in the mirror. His hair had seen better days. Victor tried to ruffle and smooth the hair to make it at least somewhat presentable, but he wasn’t very successful in his attempts. Eventually Victor gave up on the hair and brushed his teeth quickly. Drinking alcohol always seemed to make for the worst case of morning breath.

When he exited the bathroom Yuuri was standing in the middle of the living room, looking slightly more alert. Yuuri slinked into the bathroom after Victor, and Victor busied himself in the kitchenette. He boiled some water and made himself instant coffee. He also found some tea bags in the cupboard, and when he heard Yuuri coming out of the bathroom he shouted toward the living room, “Did you want tea? Or coffee?”

Yuuri appeared in the doorway. His hair looked damp and smoother than moments before. “Uh. Tea would be nice.” Yuuri scratched the back of his neck and yawned.

“I take it that you’re not a morning person?” Victor asked, glancing up from the tea mug he was pouring water in.

Yuuri smiled sheepishly. “Not in the slightest.”

“Well, too bad, because I am,” Victor grinned. He plopped the tea bag into the mug and watched it sink into the steaming hot water.

Yuuri muttered something that sounded like profound cursing in Japanese. “Well, I guess I’ll live,” he then said, taking the steaming mug Victor offered him. “Thanks.”

They sat at the table, Yuuri next to one of the windows and Victor in his usual spot facing the wall between the windows. Yuuri pulled his legs up on the chair and crossed them under himself. He sat holding his mug and blowing into the hot tea. The afternoon light from the window painted half of his face in bright highlights, creating deep shadows on the other side. Even in the harsh light of the day and barely awake, Yuuri looked flawless. Victor set the coffee mug on the table and mixed the liquid absently with his spoon.

Yuuri looked up from his mug to Victor. “So, does this count as a full date in your opinion?”

Victor chuckled. “Well, just about,” he admitted. “I had fun,” he said, staring into Yuuri’s eyes.

Yuuri bit down on his lower lip. Victor loved the tiny nervous habit. “I had fun, too,” Yuuri said.

There was a silence while both of them sipped from their mugs. The atmosphere was slightly weird, but Victor didn’t know if it was because Yuuri was decidedly not a morning person or because of something else. And he didn’t really know how to ask, either, because he couldn’t just say, _Hey, so is this weird because you’re still not fully awake or is it something between us?_

That didn’t sound good even in his mind, so it probably wouldn’t sound any better when said aloud.

So Victor let the silence linger and screamed inwardly.

Yuuri finished his tea and pushed the mug toward the middle of the table. “Uh, maybe I should go home. You probably have stuff—“

“Nope, I got nothing,” Victor interrupted, not caring if it made him sound needy. “I mean, I don’t need to go to the museum today. I have some stuff that needs to be done over the weekend, but that can wait until tomorrow.”

“Oh.” Yuuri bit his lip again. Victor wanted to take a photo of him doing it. “Well, I mean, if you’re not busy—“

“Please, stay.” Victor looked at Yuuri with eyes he hoped were the perfect mix between pleading and smoldering. “We can do something, or go somewhere if you want.”

Yuuri hesitated and glanced down at his blue t-shirt, wrinkled in the wake of him sleeping in it.

“I’ll lend you a clean shirt,” Victor said.

A momentary silence expanded between them again.

“Okay,” Yuuri agreed.

When they exited the apartment and walked out to meet the breezy Saturday afternoon, Victor couldn’t stop thinking that Yuuri was wearing his shirt. It was just a plain white t-shirt, but it was still thrilling to think about Yuuri wearing his clothes.

“So, I’m thinking food,” Victor said, bouncing on the balls of his feet a little. “What are you in the mood for?”

Yuuri gave him a slightly oblique smile. “I’m not really hungry so soon after waking up, but I guess I could go for something really greasy and unhealthy.”

Victor grinned. “I know just the place for that. Let’s go!”

Victor led Yuuri to the diner that was a couple of blocks away from his apartment. They slid down the plastic benches on the opposite sides of a window table and received menus from the waitress in a candy-striped dress and a white apron. It was the epitome of a tacky 50s style diner, cheap plastic galore with headache-inducing color combinations and photos of Elvis and Marilyn framed on the walls.

“The food here is the best kind of hangover food; deep-fried, greasy and so, _so_ good,” Victor said. “Although I’m not really that hungover. Or, maybe slightly?” There was a constant dryness in his mouth and just a tinge of a headache at the back of his head, but nothing too bad.

“Maybe slightly,” Yuuri agreed.

The waitress came to take their orders and to pour coffee. Yuuri asked for tea instead and got a mug with hot water in it and an assortment of tea bags in a small dish. Victor ordered a portion of food without paying too much attention to it and then turned back to Yuuri. “So, how long have you lived around here?” he asked to say something. “I mean, when did you move from Japan?”

Yuuri thought about it for a moment. “Soon five years,” he said after a while. “What about you?”

“Almost nine,” Victor replied.

“Do you ever visit home?” Yuuri asked, tilting his head.

Victor glanced out the window. “My home is with me. I guess I’m like a snail in that sense.”

“A snail?”

“Yeah, they carry their homes with them. My home is in my head.” Victor looked over at Yuuri and smiled. He had made his peace with the fact that there was nothing to go back to in Russia.

“Oh. I try to go back at least once every year or two, visit my parents in Hasetsu.” Yuuri looked down at the table where Victor’s hands rested.

Silence. Victor fidgeted a bit and wondered yet again how long it would take until the silences would not be awkward anymore.

“So I—“ Yuuri began.

“I kinda—“ Victor said at the same time. “You first,” he continued when they both stopped to wait for the other to finish the sentence.

“Okay. So I… kind of wanted to explain something.” Yuuri looked down, and there was a flash of white as his teeth appeared, worrying his lower lip between them. Victor tried not to stare, but failed miserably.

“Okay?” Victor finally said when it seemed Yuuri wasn’t going to do any explaining despite claiming he wanted to.

“Right. So. When you sent that message with your own name, and all the details of your life, and then I sort of vanished for a couple of days?” Yuuri looked at Victor like he wasn’t sure if Victor remembered such a trivial fact.

_Five days_ , Victor wanted to say. _It was five days of complete radio silence_. Instead he just nodded as a sign that he recalled this happening.

“Well, I told you the day we were supposed to meet wasn’t a good one. The days before that weren’t either.” Yuuri looked out the window, very pointedly avoiding Victor’s gaze.

The waitress came back with their orders just then. There was a break in the conversation as they both took a bite.

“You don’t really have to explain anything,” Victor said after swallowing a forkful of scrambled eggs.

“No, I want to.” Yuuri looked straight at Victor, seemingly determined. “You know, I’ve never been really good at saying things directly.” He fell silent for a second.

_You don’t say_ , Victor thought.

“That’s why I sent that coded message. I thought if you were really interested in meeting me you’d figure it out.” Yuuri pursed his lips thoughtfully.

“That was very Dan Brown of you,” Victor said, remembering his conversation with Chris about the note.

“I guess it was,” Yuuri smiled at his food. “Truth is, I was freaking out. For those days before I sent the coded message and all the way to the day we were supposed to meet at the park. And even before that, when I discovered who you were in real life. I guess it all just culminated into that day… I tried, and I couldn’t.” Yuuri’s smile had vanished. Victor wanted to bring the smile back.

“So you sent Phichit instead, pretending to be you, even though you knew he would probably blow the act in like five seconds,” Victor said lightly, hoping to make Yuuri smile again. Yuuri glanced up – there was a ghost of a smile, but it didn’t reach his eyes.

“Phichit offered.” Yuuri shrugged. “So the point is, I _wanted_ to come meet you that day, but I couldn’t.” There was an edge to his voice, some emotion Victor didn’t catch before it was gone.

“It’s okay,” Victor said calmly. Yuuri glanced at him with disbelieving eyes. “Really.”

Victor wondered when Yuuri would be ready to talk to him about the dark monster in the room. There was clearly something there, something that Yuuri didn’t want to discuss even if he tried to explain it to an extent. Victor had some educated guesses but he didn’t dare to pour them on Yuuri. He figured Yuuri would talk about it eventually, because Victor sure as hell didn’t know how to ask. Asking about something negative like that always gave him uncomfortable shivers down his spine. Those were private matters, and he knew that if he’d had dark secrets, he didn’t want anyone inquiring about them like they were as mundane as his coffee-drinking preferences.

In a way Victor probably _did_ have his own dark secrets, when he thought about it. He didn’t know how he was going to approach it when Yuuri would inevitably ask about his family in Russia. But thankfully Yuuri hadn’t asked. Yet. It was probably just a matter of time, though.

Victor buttered a piece of toast and bit a chunk off. On the opposite side of the table, Yuuri was mirroring his movements with his own piece of toast.

“So how long have you known Phichit?” Victor asked.

“About three years.” Yuuri said after counting them with his fingers. “At the time, I was part of this extracurricular group in college and he came to ask if freshmen were allowed to join. He had just moved from Thailand and didn’t know anyone. But well, you’ve seen a glimpse of what Phichit is like, so you can guess he makes friends easily.”

Victor nodded. Phichit seemed just the type to form friendships left and right just by being himself.

“I don’t know why he latched onto me, though. Perhaps he saw me there by myself and thought I needed at least one friend or something.” Yuuri shrugged.

“Or perhaps Phichit is really good at reading people and saw how amazing you are?” Victor countered softly.

Yuuri blushed the same shade as the fried tomato half on his plate.

“So, what was the extracurricular you were doing?” Victor asked.

If possible, Yuuri’s blush only deepened. “Uh, dancing,” he said, choking a little. “I did dancing for years.”

That explained the athletic build of Yuuri’s body. There were definitely signs of physical training in his muscles and the movements of his body.

“Oh, that’s cool,” Victor said, delighted. “You’ll have to teach some moves to me, I suck at dancing.”

Yuuri muttered something that might have been a _yes_ but just as easily a _no_. Victor stored the idea in his mental folder and reminded himself to ask about it later. He saw it in his mind – Yuuri gliding across a dance floor fluidly, leading Victor who was following along in a slightly less flawless manner.

Yuuri poked the tomato half around on his plate with his fork, moving it from beside the hash browns to the remnants of his fried mushrooms. He then arranged his strips of bacon in straight rows and made a cube of his remaining scrambled eggs. Victor was following this modern art display in the making with interest, munching on a crunchy piece of bacon.

Yuuri noticed him staring and put the fork down. “Sorry. I’m just not that hungry right now.”

“So _that’s_ what this modern art piece is called,” Victor grinned. “’ _I’m just not that hungry right now_ ’?”

The smile was back, and this time it reached Yuuri’s eyes. Victor patted himself mentally on the back for that. Yuuri snorted softly at Victor’s comment, and reached for the bread basket. He buttered another piece of toast, and grabbed a strip of bacon off the plate to go with it.

“Aww, now the integrity of the art is ruined,” Victor said mournfully. “You should at least have instagrammed a photo of that.”

“So sad,” Yuuri deadpanned and took a bite of his toast. He chewed on it slowly and swallowed. “You know, I started writing my novel,” he said after a moment of silence.

Victor beamed. “You did? That’s amazing!”

“Well, not that amazing. I only have a rough draft,” Yuuri shrugged, lowering the toast on his napkin.

“Do you want to tell me what’s it about?” Victor inquired.

“Well. It’s a mystery. And some romance.” Yuuri looked embarrassed.

“That sounds good,” Victor encouraged. “What’s the plot?”

“There’s this private detective,” Yuuri grinned. “Who has a sketchy office in his apartment.”

Victor laughed. “Uh-huh. And?”

“He’s on this case about three missing persons. Everyone else thinks the disappearances are unrelated, but he’s sure they’re connected. And there’s a big company who has hired him to solve the case, because one of the missing people is their employee who has some valuable knowledge they don’t want getting into the wrong hands.” Yuuri started waving his toast in the air as his explanation progressed. His eyes were bright with excitement and there was a smile on his face. Victor leaned his elbows on the table and lowered his chin to rest on one hand. This is what he wanted Yuuri to be like all the time. So happy and excited and _alive_.

“But there is clearly someone who doesn’t want him solving the case, because one by one his leads go cold. So then one day the detective gets an anonymous tip that leads him to a fountain in a park, and he discovers the someone who knows something about the crime has left a message in a bottle in the fountain…” Yuuri grinned.

“This is all starting to sound very familiar,” Victor said, smiling so wide that his cheeks hurt. “But I like it! Where’s the romance, though? I’m a sucker for romance, you know.”

“Well, that’s still a bit unclear to me as well,” Yuuri admitted. “But I’m fairly sure it has something to do with the person sending the messages through the fountain.”

“I see. Well, I’m sure you’ll figure it out.” Victor happily waved the hand that wasn’t supporting his chin. “This sounds like an interesting novel. And the messaging through the fountain – so unique and original.” He winked.

Yuuri smiled a bit shyly, looking down, and then glanced up at Victor through his lashes. He didn’t seem to realize the effect the look had, because it immediately made Victor want to jump across the table and kiss him silly. Victor had to bite his tongue to prevent the hitched breath from escaping audibly from his throat. He glanced down at his plate to collect himself. The pile of fried mushrooms seemed to be staring back at him. Victor didn’t like mushrooms so they were all pushed to the very edge of the plate.

“So, are you finished with your art installation?” Victor asked, nodding toward Yuuri’s plate. He dared to steal a glance at Yuuri’s face and noticed that Yuuri wasn’t looking in his direction anymore. It was a disappointment and a relief at the same time.

“Yeah, pretty much.” Yuuri dropped his napkin on the plate and pushed it toward the middle of the table.

Victor sipped the last of his coffee and made eye contact with the waitress passing by. “Can we get the check, please?”

She nodded and hurried toward the register.

“Wait, you’re not paying for both our foods,” Yuuri said and fished a twenty from his wallet. “I can pay for my own.”

The tone of his voice was so stern that Victor didn’t argue. It was almost as if Yuuri was afraid that letting Victor pay for his food meant that he _owed_ Victor something. Victor could kind of understand where the idea came from; he might have argued the same if Yuuri suddenly insisted on paying everything for him.

As they exited the diner, the afternoon sun was blazing down from cloudless skies. It might have been a nice day to go to the beach, but here in the city the heat radiating off the buildings and pavements was just sweltering. They switched over to the side of the street that was in shade and continued walking without a clear plan.

“You know, we should go to a museum, they usually have air conditioning,” Yuuri said with a hint of a smile on his face. “But I guess you’re already sick of museums.”

“Not all of them; just the one,” Victor said. “Did you have anything in particular in mind?”

Yuuri simply smiled and nodded. “You won’t know what hit you,” he said jokingly.

“Okay, now I’m scared.” Victor grinned.

They took a southbound train from the closest subway station.

Sitting next to Yuuri in the train, Victor thought about the time when he was sitting in an almost-identical train car and holding onto a blue umbrella as a token of _something_ that was yet to come. If he thought about it for too long, it seemed almost as if he had exchanged the umbrella for the man currently sitting next to him. Victor chuckled at the thought.

Yuuri glanced at him. “What?”

Victor tried to explain the thought as he best could, but it didn’t quite have the same ring to it when he said it out loud.

Yuuri seemed to understand what he meant, nonetheless. He smiled to the opposite window, where their reflections were sitting side by side. “Well, the umbrella got you the first glance, but are you sure you want to know the cost of the whole thing?”

Victor really, _really_ wanted to.

They got off the train and walked a few blocks to the modern building sitting near the riverbank. They bought tickets, and Victor managed to talk the girl at the register into giving him the student discount, even though as a post-grad he didn’t technically count as a student anymore. Yuuri followed the exchange with an amused smile on his face.

“You sure can talk,” he said when they finally entered the first exhibitions.

“Eh, I guess,” Victor said with a shrug and looked around. “So, being a student of art, you’re probably going to have to explain some of these to me, because my knowledge on the more modern stuff is pretty limited.”

“Does this mean I can tell you any bullshit interpretations and you’ll actually believe them?” Yuuri asked mischievously.

Victor sighed. “Probably.”

He did not like the playful side-glance Yuuri gave him.

They paced through the exhibitions. Victor could appreciate the black-and-white photographs and some of the paintings, but some of the more contemporary installations went a bit over his head.

“Yeah, I don’t get it,” Victor said as they stood beside a table that had been sectioned off with ropes on all sides. There were various items scattered all over the table; everyday items like a toothbrush, a coffee mug and a very realistic-looking half of a sandwich. Victor thought it looked like someone’s breakfast had just been brought in and sectioned off with ropes. “What’s your bullshit interpretation on this?”

“I think this shows in an interesting way how people easily slip into a certain set of routines and then just stick to it,” Yuuri said, tilting his head to the side thoughtfully.

Victor tilted his head to the side, copying Yuuri’s expression. “Hmm.”

Yuuri was probably bullshitting him, and Victor said as much.

“Nah. This is actually interesting; to see if I can make you see this my way.” Yuuri’s side-glance at Victor was amused. “You’re probably thinking it’s just a pile of trash glued to a table, but really, if you look at it long enough you’ll begin to see a pattern.”

Victor tried. He stared at the piece, but to him it still looked like trash glued to a table. “Yeah, I don’t really see it. But I’m guessing this falls somewhere along the lines of _ants in an anthill_ and so on.”

Yuuri looked at Victor and smiled. “Something like that. But I mean, everyone has routines they follow. Like, think about what you do every morning. You probably have a certain order of things, like you go to the bathroom, then make some coffee and shave and brush your teeth and whatnot. And you probably do those things the same way every morning and don’t even think about it.”

“Well, that’s true. But then again, why would I need to change that?” Victor challenged. “Why should I go out of my way to make things more difficult for myself?”

“Those are small things, but you need to think bigger here. This installation makes you notice the small things, but it’s up to you to expand on those things. If you think about it, our lives and _everything_ in them are just intertwined sets of routines that we follow, usually without questioning them.” Yuuri looked over at the art installation again. “We all do the same thing, day after day.”

“I guess,” Victor said. The train of thought was pretty similar to what Chris had called Victor’s _mid-life crisis_ ; being afraid that the days were just going to follow one another and everything would stay the same. Interesting that Yuuri would see the same thing in an art piece that was a _table_. “So, does this apply to you as well, or are you wiser than the rest of us doing our chores around the anthill?”

Yuuri snorted and shook his head as if he was trying to banish an unpleasant thought. “Well, I _know_ I’m just as stuck in my routines as everyone else. The only difference is that I _recognize_ it and try to change it. And it scares the hell out of me every day. I don’t like change, so essentially I’m trying to screw myself over on a daily basis.”

Victor looked at the piece of art. He definitely understood where Yuuri was coming from with his talk about routines and their lives following a predetermined track and all that, but he couldn’t for the life of him understand how Yuuri got all of this from a table with some items on it. He muttered the thought aloud, and to his surprise Yuuri started laughing.

“Well, if you want to know the secret to my amazing art interpretation, you just need to read the description on the sign over there,” Yuuri confessed, and his voice was laced with amusement as he pointed to the floor.

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Victor groaned, looking at the description about the art piece that was taped to the floor next to Yuuri’s foot.

“Well, I didn’t cheat _much_ ,” Yuuri said, grinning. “It just says that the piece is about routines and change. The rest was all me.” He batted his lashes innocently.

“Very deep,” Victor said, giving Yuuri a nudge with his shoulder.

“You actually gave me the idea, talking about the anthill,” Yuuri grinned and nudged Victor back.

“So essentially, I helped you bullshit an interpretation about a contemporary art piece?” Victor sighed and rolled his eyes good-humoredly. “Nice.”

“We’d make an excellent team of art critics or something,” Yuuri laughed.

“We would.”

Yuuri’s hand was very close to his, so Victor cautiously laced his fingers with Yuuri’s. The touch sent shivers down his spine, because Yuuri responded by intertwining his fingers more tightly with Victor’s. There was still hesitation in the touch, because both of them were still getting to know the body language of the other. They stood there for a moment, looking at the table and coming up with more far-fetched interpretations and laughing about them.

“This is what I love about art,” Yuuri said as they moved on from the table and their fingers detached. He looked at Victor over his shoulder as they passed into the next room. “It’s so open to interpretation. It’s what you want to see in it.”

“Yeah, but do you ever wonder if the piece is just an artist having gone ‘ _fuck this_ ’, and then slapping a few pieces of trash together and claiming it has a deeper meaning?” Victor grinned. “Because to me, some of the contemporary art looks exactly like that.”

“Well, you _can_ look at it that way, but the way I see it, if the piece of art makes you _think_ , or _question_ something – even if it is just the meaning behind the piece – then it’s done its job. Art is supposed to make you think and question and see things from a different perspective. So even if you see an art installation as a piece of garbage, the fact that you question what the artist’s meaning behind the piece was means that the artist has succeeded; they made you think about something while looking at their art.” Yuuri hummed contently under his breath as he stopped in front of a painting.

“Hmm. Never thought of it that way.” Victor tilted his head. “To me it seems like traditional art is easier in a sense. You can see what it depicts.”

“Yeah, but that’s kind of boring, don’t you think?” Yuuri side-glanced at Victor. “It’s straightforward, no room for interpretations. I guess that’s the difference between you as a student of archeology and me as a student of art.”

“No, that’s where you’re wrong, though,” Victor said.

“Huh?” Yuuri turned to face Victor fully. “What do you mean?”

Yuuri’s face was close to his. Victor raised a finger, very professor-like, and resisted the urge to tap the finger on Yuuri’s nose. “Studying archeology, like ceramics or pieces of tools and jewelry, is just as reliant on you being able to make interpretations. Like, you look at the things depicted on vases or examine the tools dug up from the ground and then make interpretations and conclusions about what life was like back then. And trust me, those interpretations and conclusions vary from person to person. A lot.” Victor nodded empathetically. “Really, archeology as a field can sometimes be very dramatic. Like, debates that go on for hours. Gloves tossed on the ground. Shots fired.”

“How very passionate, I never would have thought,” Yuuri said and looked at Victor with gleaming eyes. There was a playful smile on his lips.

“Oh, us archeologists pack a ton of passion,” Victor assured. “I mean, there _has_ to be some kind of passion within a person if they get excited about finding a piece of a vase that’s more than a thousand years old, right?”

The corners of Yuuri’s eyes wrinkled just slightly when he laughed. Victor wanted to pull his glasses off and make him laugh again, just so he could see it better.

Yuuri’s phone chimed in his pocket, and he fished it out to read the message. “It’s Phichit,” he explained, typing in a quick reply. “He wants to know if you have seduced me or murdered me.” There was a slight blush on his cheeks at the word _seduced_.

“Tell him I have killed you. Let him wonder how your ghost is still messaging him,” Victor suggested.

Yuuri laughed. “He also wants to know if I’m coming home for dinner.”

“You share an apartment, then?” Victor should have figured as much, with Phichit borrowing Yuuri’s umbrella and all.

“Yeah, it’s cheaper that way,” Yuuri nodded while he typed a reply to Phichit. “I should probably go home now, Phichit is making dinner.”

As they walked out of the art museum, Victor realized they had spent almost 24 hours together. It was kind of weird, seeing as it only was their second date. Weird, but good kind of weird. The _best_ kind of weird, actually.

“Where are you headed?” Victor asked as they stopped outside the doors.

“There’s a subway station that way.” Yuuri nodded to his left. “I can take a train straight home from there.”

“I can walk you to the station?” Victor offered. “I think I need to walk over to the next station to catch my train, but we’re going the same way anyway.”

They paced up the street side by side. Victor was checking his phone to see which station he should go to. “No wait, actually I can get home from the same station as you,” he said. “I’m not very familiar with this area so I wasn’t sure.”

When they crossed the street at the intersections, Victor beamed happily as their hands found each other automatically. They had to cross the street three more times, and each time their hands stayed in contact a tiny bit longer after the crossing. It felt like a game, to only hold hands at intersections, and yet it seemed that neither of them wanted to let go afterwards.

When they got to the station, Yuuri stopped by a staircase leading underground. “This is me. What line are you taking?”

Victor stood facing Yuuri, trying to orientate himself by the map that was open on his phone. He stepped aside to make way for people coming up the stairs from the station.

“The blue one, so I think I need to cross the street here and go down there,” Victor said and pointed at the subway sign diagonally across the intersection.

One more awkward silence to add to the previous ones. Victor’s eyes wandered down from Yuuri’s shoulder to his hands. Yuuri fidgeted with the hem of his shirt. Or well, with the hem of _Victor’s_ shirt. Yuuri seemed to realize this and let go of the fabric. “You’ll get your shirt back when we see each other next,” he promised, pointing at the white t-shirt.

“And you’ll probably never get your shirt back, because I will sleep with it under my pillow from now on,” Victor said without shame. Yuuri had left his t-shirt at Victor’s apartment, because he didn’t have a bag to carry it in.

Yuuri blushed at the words and his teeth found his lower lip again. Victor couldn’t stop staring. When Yuuri’s lower lip was finally released from his teeth, Victor’s gaze slid over to Yuuri’s eyes. Yuuri’s eyes were staring back at him, unblinkingly, and his pupils were dilated. Victor remembered reading somewhere that people’s pupils dilated when they saw something they liked, and constricted when they encountered something they disliked. If that was the case, then apparently Yuuri liked what he saw right now.

Victor wondered if his own irises were even visible anymore; perhaps his eyes were entirely just black, dilated pupils because he _definitely_ liked what he saw. Then he came to think about how alien it would look to have completely black eyes. He shivered and shook his head at the thought, snapping out of it when Yuuri shifted his weight from one foot to the other.

“What are you thinking about?” Yuuri asked. “Because I could see like three separate facial expressions following each other there but I have no idea what caused them.”

Yuuri was very good at noticing things.

Victor scratched his cheek and snorted amusedly. “Uh. Well, I read somewhere that people’s pupils dilate when they see something they like,” he explained.

“Yeah?” Yuuri wrinkled his brow.

“So then I thought that my eyes probably are just two black pupils at this point,” Victor continued. “And then I came to think how it would look like from a horror movie to just have two black eyes staring at you.”

Yuuri looked at Victor for a second like Victor was utterly insane, but then the burst out laughing. Victor grinned, watching how the corners of Yuuri’s eyes wrinkled adorably and the way his mouth spread wide while he laughed.

“Oh, so that’s what the disgusted look at the end was,” Yuuri said, bringing his hand up to cover his mouth. “For a moment there I thought there was something on my face.”

Victor looked at him, horrified. “Yeah, it had nothing to do with _you_ ,” he hurried to explain. “Because I am liking this view, no doubt about that.”

Yuuri smiled and looked at Victor through his lashes. “Well, I must say your pupils are a bit wide right now,” he observed.

Victor drew in a breath. Was Yuuri _flirting_ with him? Because this definitely looked like flirting to him.

He stepped aside once more to let people pass to the stairs, and then decided this was not a good place for after-date goodbyes. Victor reached out with his hand and grabbed Yuuri’s, pulling him to the side of the stairs so they weren’t in the way. Victor lingered in the touch, because he didn’t want to let go. He looked at Yuuri’s lips, remembering how they had parted for his in the dead of the night, wondered if he was allowed to do it again in the bold light of the day.

Yuuri shifted so he was just a bit closer to Victor, and Victor leaned in slightly. Their eyes locked, and for a moment Victor’s senses were dulled to everything else around him. The hum of the traffic around them, the people walking past, the music blaring from the nearby restaurant, everything seemed to cease to exist for a moment. There was just Yuuri and his eyes and those damn lips. Yuuri was biting his lip again, the subconscious nervous habit that drove Victor insane.

“I’m going to kiss you,” Victor said in a low voice, allowing Yuuri a chance to back off.

Yuuri didn’t. His mouth opened just slightly, and his lower lip was a little red in the wake of his teeth on it. Victor leaned in the rest of the way.

The moment their lips touched, the world around them returned to normal. Victor registered the sounds of the city around them and the warm air blowing through the subway vent somewhere near their feet. He felt Yuuri’s hand leave his and snake around to his back, pulling him closer. Victor’s hands found their way around Yuuri’s body, and for a moment Victor couldn’t tell where he ended and Yuuri began. His senses seemed to overload from all the stimulus, so it took a moment for him to register the movements of their lips against one another’s.

The kiss was slow but there was a hint of desperation in it. It felt like a goodbye neither of them wanted to say, and thinking that made Victor feel a bit melodramatic, because it wasn’t like they wouldn’t see each other again. And soon, too, if Victor had any say in it.

When they finally separated, Victor felt like there should have been applause from the people around them, but nobody seemed to pay any attention to them. In a way it was kind of disappointing, because the feeling after the kiss was like after a grand performance. He pulled back from Yuuri’s embrace and looked around him. Somehow it felt like the world should have looked different, but it was exactly the same.

“Wow,” Victor whispered.

Yuuri straightened his glasses, and the blush on his cheeks was back. He stepped back and shuffled his feet a bit awkwardly. “Well. I… guess we’ll see each other again.”

“Oh, most definitely,” Victor said empathetically.

He watched as Yuuri walked down the stairs and then crossed over to the entrance across the intersection to catch his own train.

When Victor walked over to the platform his train would stop at, he paced around impatiently. Finally he stopped and glanced over the tracks, only to see Yuuri standing on the next platform over, back turned and typing into his phone.

“Yuuri!” Victor called, and Yuuri jumped a bit, startled.

Yuuri turned around, and their eyes locked over the two sets of tracks separating them.

Just then, a train came out of the tunnel. Victor grinned and reached his hand melodramatically toward Yuuri. Yuuri hesitated just a moment, but then mimicked the movement with an amused expression on his face. For a second they stood there, reaching for one another over the distance before the train slid in between them along the tracks on Yuuri’s side and came to a stop.

Through the windows of the train car, Victor could see the doors opening and people pouring in and out, but he didn’t see Yuuri get on. However, when the train departed again Yuuri was gone from the platform.

Victor sighed and turned to check the timetable to see when his train was due.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And the tooth-rotting fluff continues. It will continue for a little bit more, but then there will be some slight angst because no relationship is perfect.  
> -  
> The chapter title lyrics are from [The Past and Pending](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SmGSKJJmhDo) by The Shins.  
> -  
> If you have any questions, ask me on my [tumblr](https://worldofcopperwings.tumblr.com/) or in the comments below. Or just come talk to me about stuff, fic-related or not! I also draw YOI fanart on my tumblr, so you can check that out as well! :)  
> -  
> Thanks to my beta [merkitty](https://merkitty.tumblr.com/), I couldn't do this without you. ♥


	10. probability, infinity and water puppies

The following couple of days at work were uneventful, so the only bright spots in the glum passage of time were Yuuri’s messages. Victor lived from message to message.

Luckily now with the current exhibition ongoing and nothing else to set up, Victor had a lot more time to write his dissertation. And even though it was slow-going, little by little the list of unread research papers grew smaller and the word count of his text file grew bigger. Now when it seemed he might actually finish his dissertation before turning thirty, Victor found himself wondering what lay ahead; beyond the dissertation.

Victor wasn’t sure what he was going to do once he actually got his doctorate degree. It felt like he’d been studying and doing research for so long that he’d forgotten what the real world was like and what kinds of opportunities it held. He liked his assistant’s job at the museum and he was pretty sure he would be able to continue there as a curator or something else that they would have available, but when Victor really sat down and thought about it, he didn’t see himself here in five years. Truth be told, he didn’t have any kind of idea where he was going to be in five years, work-wise or in his personal life.

Previously Victor’s thoughts were concentrated on the next goal to be attained—first it was a bachelor’s, then a master’s degree, followed by the doctorate program and now finishing this degree. The past nine years of his life had been direct lines from one goal to another. But after this particular goal, he didn’t have another one lined up. For the first time in his life, Victor was left without anything to pursue.

Perhaps that was the curse of the so-called adult life. Once all the necessary goals had been ticked off, there wasn’t much to look forward to. It was going to be work and perhaps family life in the suburbs – at least for those people who had suburban family inclinations – and acquiring pets and cars and bicycles and new phones. Victor didn’t feel like he fell into the category of family-inclined people. But really, what else was there? It felt like he was on the verge of something that would either make it or break it for him, but Victor had no idea what it was.

His phone buzzed next to his laptop on his desk. Victor tapped the display to view the message. It was from Yuuri, and Victor grabbed the phone from the desk excitedly.

 

_Can I steal you for lunch or have you already had lunch?_

 

Victor glanced at the time and typed in a reply:

_Haven’t eaten yet, and heck yeah you can steal me for lunch._

 

The next reply came before he could even lower the phone back on the desk.

_I was hoping you’d say that. Meet me at the fountain in twenty minutes?_

 

Victor quickly sent an agreeing reply and then spent the following ten minutes hunting for a comb from every possibly nook and cranny in his tiny office. He was sure he had left one here somewhere, but the comb wasn’t in any of the logical or even the illogical places he checked. Eventually he resorted to combing his hair with his fingers and sighed heavily as the longer locks at the front refused to stay the way he wanted them to.

One of these days he was going to remember to make an appointment for a haircut like he had intended to for about a month now. For some reason the idea always seemed to slip his mind and he was only reminded of it when he needed his hair to look presentable.

Victor set a reminder in his phone’s calendar so he’d remember to make the appointment after lunch. The hair situation was getting _ridiculous_.

Victor walked over to the bathroom in the hallway and did a quick glance-over in the mirror to see if there was anything weird about him or his outfit. Black pants, a light blue button-up shirt and a mess of silver hair stared back at him, but aside from the hair there didn’t seem to be anything amiss. He opened the topmost button of his shirt and rolled the sleeves up to his elbows. In the air-conditioned museum the outfit was fine, but the outside world was sadly not air-conditioned. The June weather was currently giving the city its best impression of a heat wave, so he was fairly sure he’d feel like melting within seconds of stepping out of the door.

Victor paced out the side door, exchanging greetings with Emil who was sitting in the security booth, watching the screens with a coffee in his hands. He stepped out of the door and immediately a wall of hot air rushed to meet him. Victor sighed and put his sunglasses on, pacing out into the merciless sunshine.

Victor walked through the gates to the intersection. Across the street, he could already see Yuuri sitting on the edge of the fountain.

When Victor approached the fountain, he wondered absently about the correct protocol concerning their meetings. Was it okay for him to kiss Yuuri? Was it expected of him? Yuuri’s face betrayed no emotion when Victor stopped in front of him; no hint how Victor was supposed to greet him.

So Victor shifted his weight and smiled. “Hey,” he said.

“Hey,” Yuuri greeted back and got up. As he straightened, Victor thought he was the perfect height for Victor to kiss him on the tip of his nose. He resisted the urge, though, because he had no idea how the move would be received.

Yuuri was carrying a white plastic bag with him. “I brought lunch,” he said, holding the bag up. “I hope you don’t have any deathly allergies.”

Victor assured him that he wasn’t allergic to anything. “So, where should we go eat it? I can’t go very far because I have to be back in half an hour.”

Yuuri glanced back at the wide stone edge of the fountain. “Why not here?” There was a slight smile on his lips.

It seemed suitable somehow, to have lunch at the spot where their message exchange began. Victor raised his eyebrows in an expression that said _‘why not’_ , and they sat down on the edge of the fountain.

The water was bubbling behind them, and the coolness of the slightly damp stone was welcome in the suffocating heat. “What are we having for lunch?” Victor asked, peeking curiously into the bag as Yuuri set it on his lap and spread it open. Yuuri pulled out two bottles of water and handed one to Victor.

“I brought two bento boxes from an Asian grocery store that’s near my apartment. I thought we could share them, there’s different stuff in each of them?” Yuuri looked up shyly.

“Of course, that sounds good,” Victor said, setting the water bottle beside him on the gray stone. “I’ve never had one of those before.” He’d heard of them, of course, and seen cutesy pictures online of rice molded into animated characters with seaweed strips arranged to form eyes, mouths and such.

Yuuri handed one of the boxes to Victor, who opened the plastic lid and looked at the food inside. The portions were arranged neatly in the sections of the boxes. No cute animals or anything, but still, the colors and shapes were so imaginative that it felt almost shameful to destroy them.

“These are almost like art,” Victor said, turning the box in his hands. “Edible art. Neat.”

The corners of Yuuri’s mouth twitched just slightly. “Did you have a bullshit interpretation of your box, then?” he asked, laughter clear in his voice.

“I’m too hungry for art interpretations,” Victor groaned good-humoredly. “So right now, this just looks like delicious food arranged really impressively.”

“Good interpretation. 頂きます!” Yuuri said.

“Is that like _bon appetit_ in Japanese?” Victor asked. When Yuuri nodded, he asked, “How do you say it again?”

“ _Itadakimasu_ ,” Yuuri said more slowly.

“It-a-da-ki-mas?” Victor said, feeling like he was butchering the word.

Yuuri laughed. “Close enough.”

“Okay, well bon appetit, _itadakimasu_ and Приятного аппетита!”

“ _Prijatnogo appetita_ ,” Yuuri repeated, trying out the Russian syllables. Victor smiled at the little-off but adorable pronunciation. He kind of wanted to get Yuuri to say more things in Russian, because it sounded so cute.

About twenty seconds into their meal Victor realized that he _sucked_ at using chopsticks. He had tried eating with chopsticks before, but usually given up pretty soon. He cautiously dangled a piece of bell pepper between the sticks and managed to insert it to his mouth, but the process was time-consuming and awkward. Yuuri, on the other hand, was on professional athlete level in using chopsticks. Victor watched, fascinated, as Yuuri effortlessly picked up pieces of food from his box and ate them without any hassle. Victor sipped on his water, frustrated at the chopsticks sitting on top of his bento right now.

Yuuri side-glanced at him. “There’s a plastic fork in the bag if you want it,” he said amusedly.

If it hadn’t been for the time restraint, Victor would never have given up so easily, but unfortunately he only had limited time. Also, he was hungry. He took the plastic fork Yuuri offered and resorted to stabbing the pieces of food in his box like it was their fault that Victor was a failure who didn’t know how to eat with chopsticks.

“Here, try this,” Yuuri said, pointing his chopsticks at one of the sections of his box. Victor stabbed his fork through one of the pieces of chicken. Somehow using a fork felt more brutal; not at all as graceful as Yuuri’s effortless use of chopsticks. Victor brought the fork into his mouth and swore to learn to eat with chopsticks one of these days.

He offered his box to Yuuri, who daintily picked up some broccoli between his chopsticks. Victor sighed inwardly. Yuuri was graceful like a Japanese cherry blossom with his chopsticks, whereas he was like a Russian bear, plowing through the food with his destructive fork.

Victor was very happy that Yuuri couldn’t read his thoughts concerning their eating habits.

Victor looked at Yuuri and registered the small bead of sweat running down the side of Yuuri’s neck. “I bet this is one of those days when you would want to be somewhere in Siberia,” Victor said, referring to their text message conversation from a while back.

“It’s summer in Siberia, too, isn’t it? Being in the northern hemisphere and all.”

“Well, yeah, and not all of it is frozen wasteland, but it’s still pretty cold there, especially in the northernmost parts,” Victor said. “I mean, I wouldn’t go visit without a decent coat at least.” Or three coats. There were parts of Siberia where the ground was encased in a permanent frost and even the warmest summer days would be considered sweater-weather.

Yuuri made a non-committal humming noise and picked up another piece of broccoli from Victor’s box.

“We could go to the beach someday, if the weather stays like this,” Victor suggested. Right away as he finished the sentence, he realized he had referred to them as _we_. Was that bad? _Too much too soon_ , the voice of his conscience said in a nagging tone. Victor silently told Chris to leave him alone.

A cautious glance to his side told him that at least Yuuri had not yet run away. The younger man was looking down at the remains of his bento, shifting a piece of sliced carrot here and there with his chopsticks. Then Yuuri looked up, suddenly, and their eyes locked. “Yeah. I’d like that,” Yuuri said, eyes dark and gleaming. “On one condition.”

Victor raised his eyebrows, intrigued. “And what’s that?”

“We also go visit the aquarium.”

Victor grinned. “Sure. It’s a date. A whole one.”

“Uh-huh,” Yuuri said, shaking his head slightly and smiling. “So, we haven’t exactly defined what it means. Like, what counts as a full date? Is it the time we spend together?”

Victor’s heart did a little tap-dance number and skipped a beat every time Yuuri said _‘we’_.

“Well, it’s a combination of things,” he begun with a feigned professor voice. “Actually, there is a mathematical equation to this: it’s time plus the activities we do, divided by level of intimacy. And there are circumstantial factors that are calculated into the equation as well.”

Yuuri laughed. “I see. So going out to dinner, then going to your place for a YouTube marathon, making out on your couch and staying overnight, borrowing your shirt, going for a brunch and then visiting an art museum… what date value does that get?”

Victor’s eyes gleamed and his smile grew wider as the list of things Yuuri mentioned about their weekend grew longer. It had definitely been one of the best weekends in Victor’s life. “Off the top of my head I’d have to say that it has a date value of 2.3,” he said, nodding as if it was obvious why their weekend together had been assigned this number.

“2.3? Why?” Yuuri smiled and looked at Victor curiously.

“Well, it might have been three, but your roommate being present lowers the value.” Victor nodded as if this was a scientifically-proven, evidence-based method. “Not that Phichit isn’t nice and all, but still, it lowers the date value. It’s an intimacy-decreasing circumstantial factor.”

Yuuri nudged his shoulder against Victor’s. “You’re good at bullshitting.”

“Only when it’s not art-related,” Victor grinned. “That’s more your area of expertise.”

Yuuri set his finished bento box on the edge of the fountain and took a gulp of water from his bottle. Then he pulled out his phone. “What time did you have to get back?”

Victor pulled out his own phone and frowned. “About now.” He quickly finished the last of his bento. “Thanks for the food, it was really good. I’ll buy lunch next time?”

“You are assuming there will be a next time?” Yuuri said, deadpan. Then he laughed again, nudging Victor’s shoulder teasingly.

Victor gasped. “Don’t scare me like that,” he said, slamming his hand over his heart.

“Oh, your old heart can’t take it?” Yuuri teased.

“You’re mean,” Victor said.

They got up from the stone edge and discarded the empty bento boxes in the trashcan nearby. Yuuri walked across the street with him, and without a second thought Victor reached his hand out to grab Yuuri’s. Their eyes met and they both smiled at the touch. Victor didn’t let go until they were at the museum gates.

At the gate Victor turned to face Yuuri. The scorching heat from the sun-bathed pavement and the buildings around them was making his hand feel clammy in Yuuri’s but he didn’t want to let go. “This lunch break was infinitely better than what I had originally planned,” he said, looking into Yuuri’s eyes.

“What did you have planned, then?” Yuuri cocked his head to the side, smiling.

“A sandwich and some granola bars from the nearby store,” Victor said sheepishly.

“Well, it’s good I came to your rescue, then,” Yuuri said with a soft smile.

Victor stared at Yuuri and his stomach twisted into knots. It was weird how there didn’t seem to be any constancy in their interactions. At times, like now, Yuuri was very relaxed and talkative; and at times he seemed more detached and their touches grew awkward. But then again, people weren’t linear or constant, so it made sense that their developing interactions weren’t following any distinguishable pattern or a linear progression either.

Acting on an impulse, Victor leaned in and pressed a kiss on the tip of Yuuri’s nose. Yuuri wrinkled his nose reflexively at the touch, but he didn’t break eye contact. There was a blush spreading on his cheeks, though.

Even in the weather that made the entire city feel like it was on the verge of a heat stroke, Yuuri looked amazing. Victor leaned in again, lower this time.

The kiss was a soft press of lips, and then Victor had to tear himself away, because he had to get back to work.

Damn work, getting in the way of more important things.

“It was good to see you,” Victor said, his face just inches away from Yuuri’s.

“Likewise,” Yuuri breathed.

Victor turned and paced across the courtyard. At the door he turned to look back, only to see Yuuri disappearing behind the corner.

Victor swallowed.

He pulled out his phone and immediately googled the opening hours of the aquarium and the weather forecast for the next week. It was good to be prepared, right?

 

~

 

“Your hair is shorter,” Yuuri observed when they met on the mutually predetermined subway platform on Sunday. He reached out a hand as if on reflex, but then pulled it back before it touched Victor’s hair. Victor sighed and hoped Yuuri would have just gone with it. Usually he wasn’t too fond of people messing with his hair, but he would have allowed Yuuri the pleasure of doing so.

“I got tired of my hair being in my mouth when I tried to eat,” Victor said, and he was only half-joking. “So I figured it was time to get it cut, and I finally remembered to make an appointment.” The hairdresser had chopped off almost two inches and returned his hair to the state where it was at least _somewhat_ more controllable.

“It looks nice,” Yuuri said. Victor smiled.

The train ride was almost an hour long, and Victor amused Yuuri by inventing ridiculous stories about the people who were sitting in the same train car as they. It was a win-win situation, because he got to hear Yuuri laugh, and since the people were mostly in hearing distance he had to lean closer and whisper the stories into Yuuri’s ear. His nose brushed against Yuuri’s hair every now and then, and sometimes his breaths falling close to Yuuri’s ear made the younger man shiver. Victor thoroughly enjoyed the effect his breaths were having.

When they got to the aquarium, Victor let Yuuri drag him along, because he didn’t have a preference as to what kinds of fish he wanted to see. Some of the massive fish tanks were observed from the outside, but others they could walk right through. Walking in a plexiglass tube surrounded by water was somewhat disconcerting, but the colorful fish made up for the unsettling sensation. Victor stood close to Yuuri, their necks craned as they stared above at the tropical fish swimming past.

“It’s weird that I’ve lived around here for nine years and I’ve never come here before,” Victor said, angling his head down and to the side so he could catch Yuuri’s eyes.

“I’ve been here before,” Yuuri said. “Phichit asked me to go with him once, but that was almost two years ago. I always wanted to visit again.”

Victor followed along as Yuuri tugged him to the next tube going through a tank. There were no colorful fish in this one, just blue-tinted water and dangerous flashes of gray. Victor shivered as a massive shark glided through the water right above their heads. He couldn’t help but think about how the tiniest crack in the tube surrounding them would cause it to collapse, and the tube would fill with water and sharks in a matter of seconds.

“You don’t like it?” Yuuri asked, tilting his head curiously.

“It’s very impressive, but I’m just thinking _‘what if the glass breaks?’_ all the time,” Victor admitted.

Yuuri grinned wickedly and slid his hand over the glass at the spot where another shark was currently sliding silently beside them. Its eyes looked dead and the way the shark moved looked like it did so without even moving its fins. Its mouth was slightly open, revealing a set of razor-sharp teeth. It was a silent killing machine, and only the rounded piece of reinforced glass was separating it from them.

“Stop that,” Victor said and tugged Yuuri’s hand away from the glass.

Yuuri laughed at him. “Fine, let’s go see the water puppies.”

Victor stared. “The _what_ now?”

“Seals,” Yuuri explained, chuckling. “When we came here last time, Phichit couldn’t remember the English word for _seal_ so he just called them water puppies. It sort of became a thing.” Yuuri shrugged.

“I like that,” Victor said. “Water puppies. Let’s go see them, I bet they’re nicer than these creatures here.”

“Seals are actually vicious creatures, you know,” Yuuri said as they paced out of the shark tube and toward the seal tanks that were outside.

“No they’re not,” Victor said loudly. “And don’t you dare ruin the mental image I have, especially after you called them water puppies.”

The seals looked anything but vicious, gliding gracefully in the water and clumsily out of it. If anything, they did kind of resemble puppies, doing tricks to get treats and making adorable noises every now and then. Victor refused to believe they were dangerous.

After the aquarium visit they paced down the nearby boardwalk, eating ice cream and talking about animals. The conversation had begun with fish but somehow they had ended up discussing how sloths as a species were still alive and kicking, because from an evolutionary standpoint they were pretty useless at staying alive.

The weather was hot and the sun blazing from a clear sky, and probably because of that the beach was so crowded that neither of them wanted to go swimming. Instead, they walked to the end of the long pier that separated from the boardwalk and reached far over the water. The ocean breeze surrounding them on the pier felt cool after the stuffy heat of the city. Victor glanced down at his arm and was sure he was going to get sunburned in a matter of minutes. Should have put on sunscreen before leaving home.

They stood at the very end of the pier for a while, finishing their ice creams. There was a line where the blue water and the sky met far in the horizon, between the narrow gap formed by the two masses of land extending toward one another at the mouth of the bay. Victor wondered where he’d end up if he just set sail straight on from the mouth of the bay and stayed on course.

“I’ve been thinking about probability lately,” Yuuri said, wiping his hands with a napkin after finishing his ice cream. “I mean, probability is the likelihood of something happening, at least in mathematics, right?”

“Yeah,” Victor nodded.

“So what might the probability be that I put a bottle in a fountain with a message inside it and get a reply from someone? Probably very small. Then, what’s the probability that the reply is anything even remotely sane and not just a slur calling me stupid for leaving a message in a fountain? I’d be inclined to say it’s very small as well. And then, the probability of that messaging system leading into something like _this_?” Yuuri waved his hand in a motion that encased both of them. “It’s probably minuscule. Near-nonexistent.”

“Some might call it fate,” Victor mused.

Yuuri snorted. “Yes, and others would peg it on whatever deity they believe in. But really, life is just a series of coincidences with probability factors. Every small decision pushes us in a different direction than where we were previously headed, and the previous decisions affect the probability factors of the events following that. I guess that’s why I’m so surprised that this all has happened. Because it’s not a very likely scenario, when looked at from the probability viewpoint.”

Victor thought about it for a moment. It was unsettling to think that everything was kind of beyond his own control; it made him feel helpless and alone. “No wonder some people turn to religion,” he muttered, fidgeting with the sticky cardboard cup that was now emptied of ice cream. Yuuri glanced at him curiously. “I mean, it’s very scary to think that everything is just coincidence with some probabilities tossed into the mix. Because that means I don’t have control over my life, and no one else has control over my life either. I mean, believing in someone up there at least gives people the resemblance of someone being in control.” Victor pointed his finger toward the cloudless sky.

Yuuri nodded. “Yeah, so anyway. The probability of it being you who happened to pick up the bottle, and everything leading to this…the probability is getting so small that I’m almost tempted to believe it’s somehow predestined.” Yuuri smiled and shook his head. “ _Almost_ , but my rational mind fights against it.”

“You’re very logically inclined for someone who studies art history,” Victor observed.

Yuuri looked at him incredulously. “I don’t see how studying art history and being logical are mutually exclusive.”

“No, I didn’t mean it like that,” Victor said hurriedly. “It’s just that when you hear someone’s studying art history, the first thought that comes to mind isn’t that they must be very logical.”

Yuuri looked unimpressed. “Uh-huh.”

Victor ran his fingers through his hair. “Ugh, how do I explain this so that it isn’t—“

“Offensive? Relying on stereotypes?” Yuuri suggested sweetly.

Victor just spread his hands wide, trying to express that he really didn’t know what to say.

There was a quiet moment when all Victor could hear were the cries of the seagulls, his own heart racing and somewhere in the back of his head Chris’s voice calling him stupid.

Yuuri’s unimpressed look finally dissolved into laughter. “Honestly, I should have just watched you squirm. The way you kept digging yourself deeper…” He trailed off, laughter taking over again.

“That wasn’t fair,” Victor pouted.

“I never said I was fair.” Yuuri winked and turned around. He began walking back toward the boardwalk.

“Is that like your catchphrase or something?” Victor muttered before taking off after Yuuri.

“Maybe.” Yuuri side-glanced at Victor when Victor fell beside him. “But really, you shouldn’t make assumptions about people like that.”

“Point taken,” Victor said. “Sorry about that.”

They walked off the pier and onto the sandy beach below, searching for a place to sit down for a moment. Once they found a shady place, Victor slung his backpack off his shoulder and dug out a towel to spread on the sand. They sat side by side on the towel in the shade of the pier, watching the ocean spreading ahead of them.

“Have you ever thought about the concept of infinity?” Yuuri asked.

Victor glanced up from where he was untying his shoelaces, wondering if this was safer ground to tread on than the previous topic. “I’m familiar with the concept but I haven’t really thought about it,” he said. “Why?” He pulled off his shoes and dug his toes in the sand, sighing happily.

Yuuri was staring at the ocean. “I just came to think about it, because from this lower point where we are sitting, you can’t see those peninsulas sticking out from the sides of the bay, and the ocean looks infinite. Like it’s just a mass of blue that goes on forever. But that’s just the earth’s curvature.” Yuuri shrugged. “But if you think about something that’s really infinite, like, say, a string of numbers starting from 1-2-3 and so on. Theoretically you can continue that string forever. It’s infinite.”

Victor nodded. “Right.”

“But then, if you think about another string of numbers, going, 2-4-6 and so on, that’s also infinite. But at the same time, it’s somehow _smaller_ than the first set of infinite numbers, because it’s missing all the odd numbers. But it’s still infinite. Like, infinite within infinite.” Yuuri’s hands were forming a bubble shape in between them, and he brought the hands closer to one another to indicate a smaller bubble within. “Does that make any sense?” Yuuri laughed and looked over at Victor.

Yuuri’s thought processes were intriguing. Victor loved how his eyes sparkled when he was explaining something, or searching for an answer.

“Hmm.” Victor scratched his chin absently. “I mean, I get what you’re thinking, but you’re thinking infinity in relation to size. But it’s not a concept that has anything to do with size; it’s not _small_ or _big_ , it’s just _infinite_. It’s not about the size, it’s just that it goes on forever.” He reached his hand forward in a motion that indicated going forward.

Yuuri chuckled and cast a sly look in Victor’s direction. “Well, that’s what she said.”

Victor gaped at him for a second, then burst out laughing. “Yuuri!” he gasped, scandalized.

“Well, you walked straight into that one,” Yuuri shrugged. “I mean, that was completely unplanned, but you just served that to me on a silver platter.”

Victor doubted if anything Yuuri ever did or said was completely unplanned. He gave the younger man beside him a playful shove, and Yuuri nearly fell on the sand, laughing.

He was so beautiful when he laughed. Well, Yuuri was always beautiful. He was beautiful when he slept, beautiful when he had just woken up, beautiful whether he was wearing a suit or just plain jeans and a t-shirt. Yuuri was even beautiful when he _ate_ , and that was a rare feat for any human being, because most people just looked plain weird when they were stuffing their faces.

Victor was beginning to think Yuuri wasn’t human. Perhaps Yuuri didn’t exist at all; maybe he was just a figment of Victor’s imagination, brought on by stress and loneliness.

Victor suddenly needed to touch Yuuri to be sure that he was really there. He leaned closer and wrapped his arm around Yuuri’s shoulder, pulling him close.

Yuuri startled at the touch, but then leaned in, settling comfortably under Victor’s arm. Victor wiggled his toes and watched as sand poured and scattered off his feet. Yuuri was a warm presence against his side, his dark hair brushing against Victor’s cheek every now and then as the wind from the ocean gushed over them. The shrieks of the seagulls and the continuous hum of the waves breaking on the shore created a soothing lullaby. A bit farther up the beach a group of people were playing volleyball, their excited shouts mixing with the sounds of the ocean. Victor cautiously leaned his head to the side so his cheek rested on top of Yuuri’s head.

“Maybe we should head to the subway before I fall asleep,” Yuuri muttered from under Victor’s cheek. The sound resonated in small vibrations that Victor could feel against his cheek. “I mean, it’s gonna be a long ride home anyway.”

On the way home Victor stared at their reflections from the window of the train car, Yuuri’s head leaning onto his shoulder, and there was a funny feeling in his stomach. It wasn’t quite like a stomach ache nor was it like an anxiously hovering flock of butterflies. It was something he didn’t have words for, at least not yet.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Comments are a wonderful way of letting me know if you're still enjoying this, so please leave comments; they are precious to me. ♥  
> -  
> So the tooth-rotting fluff continues! I promised some angst, though, and that's what's coming soon... :P  
> -  
> Also, we're at chapter 10 and past 50k words, _what even_. When I started writing this I was aiming for something like 30k-ish words and now I'm somewhere around 60k and still have a lot of scenes I have in mind for this before I can get to the ending (and yes, the ending scene is already written... along with some other scenes on their path, but now I just need to fill in the gaps.) Hopefully you're still with me! ^_^  
>  -  
> If you have any questions, ask me on my [tumblr](https://worldofcopperwings.tumblr.com/) or in the comments below. All feedback is much appreciated!  
> -  
> Thanks to my beta [merkitty](https://merkitty.tumblr.com/) for always being there for me. ♥


	11. something must change

Chris raised one eyebrow when Victor walked into the coffee shop. “I didn’t realize I should have brought a rope,” he said as a greeting, and twirled his straw in the iced latte sitting on the table in front of him.

Victor stopped dead on his tracks beside the table. “What?”

“To keep you from floating away like some lovesick balloon. You look like your feet barely touch the ground right now,” Chris said with a grin.

Was it that obvious? Victor shook his head and his cheeks felt a little hot. He flipped Chris off in all friendship and walked over to the counter to order a coffee and a croissant.

“So, what’s up with you these days?” Victor asked after he had sat down across the table from Chris. “I feel like I haven’t talked to you in a while.”

“Oh, so you have finally noticed how you’ve been blowing off everything and everyone for your Japanese boy toy?” Chris winked. “Perceptive.”

“He’s not my _boy toy_ ,” Victor defended, mixing his coffee with a spoon.

“Okay, the love of your life, whatever,” Chris said with a teasing smile. “So, how is he in bed?”

“That’s none of your business,” Victor said with a raised eyebrow.

“So you haven’t had sex yet, aww,” Chris cooed. He sipped the last of his iced latte and lowered the glass onto the table with a clink.

Victor glanced around them. Luckily the tables closest to them were empty. “Chris! Will you shut up about my sex life already,” he groaned.

“Nope,” Chris said unashamedly. “But seriously, what if he’s terrible in bed?”

Victor stared at him incredulously. “Do you ever think about anything else besides sex?”

“Every now and then, but it gets boring really fast.” Chris shrugged. “But okay, so you’ve decided to wait until marriage or something?”

Victor sighed inwardly. “Can we stop talking about me and Yuuri having sex, please?”

“What, does the thought turn you on or something?” The look on Chris’s face was downright devilish as he leaned his elbows on the table and his chin in his hands, batting his lashes at Victor.

“ _Chris_.”

“ _Vitya_ ,” Chris mimicked in a sing-song tone.

Victor broke a piece of his croissant and threw it at Chris, who ducked neatly out of the way. Somehow hanging out with Chris always seemed to regress Victor back into a teenager.

“Anyway,” Victor said, stressing the word in a way that meant the end of that particular subject. “I asked what’s up with _you_ , and all I got as a reply was a preach about _my_ sex life. So how’s yours?” Victor batted his lashes back at Chris.

“Perfectly fine, thanks for asking.” Chris flashed him a self-satisfied smile.

“Okay, how’s life, how’s work?” Victor asked. He broke off another piece of the croissant and inserted it into his mouth.

In this economy, it was difficult to find a job that matched one’s university degree, so Chris worked as a bartender in an elite nightclub. While the salary wasn’t anything to write home about, his ceaseless flirting with all the patrons ensured that Chris would probably have been well-off living on his tips alone. Victor was pretty sure Chris could make a rock to blush if need be.

“Work is work,” Chris said. “I have regulars now who apparently come to the club only because of me.”

“What, like a fan club?” Victor chuckled.

“Well, if by _fan club_ you mean ‘a flock of lovely ladies who suffer from a bad case of mid-life crisis and need me to alleviate their pain and who leave me stacks of money in return’, then yes.” Chris leaned back in his chair and winked.

“If I didn’t know any better, that would sound like prostitution,” Victor deadpanned.

“If you think about it long enough, every job is prostitution, because you’re essentially selling your time and skills for money.” Chris waved a hand in the air nonchalantly. “Either way, it gets me a couple of hundred bucks easily and I don’t need to get in their pants, so it’s a win-win.”

“Mmm. Maybe I should quit my job at the museum and come work with you,” Victor said with a grin.

“No offense, Vitya, but with your flirting skills? Not a chance.” Chris shook his head sadly.

“I can flirt if I choose to,” Victor huffed.

“Sure. Mr. _I’ve been holding hands with my boyfriend for the past three dates and haven’t gotten even close to his pants yet_.”

“I might be offended if it wasn’t for the fact that I haven’t actively _tried_ getting into his pants,” Victor pointed out. “But thanks for the vote of confidence.”

“Any time,” Chris said. “By the way, I’ve been hanging out with a couple of people from work lately, you and Yuuri can join us for a game of pool some night if you want to?”

Victor shrugged. He wasn’t sure if it was wise to expose Yuuri to the force of nature that was Christophe Giacometti just yet. “Maybe at some point,” he amended.

“When are you seeing him again?” Chris asked.

“Tomorrow,” Victor said. He hadn’t seen Yuuri since the aquarium, and even though it had only been three days he felt like it had been weeks. Really, only three days, yet he couldn’t wait for the next day to come.

“More hand-holding?” Chris guessed.

“Dinner,” Victor said. “And possibly hand-holding.”

He felt like he shouldn’t have been so excited about the prospect of hand-holding, but whatever. The expression on Chris’s face said that he _definitely_ shouldn’t have been so excited about hand-holding, but Victor dismissed the raised eyebrow with a steady stare.

 

~

 

It was raining the next day when Victor got off work. The morning had been all sunshine and warmth, so _of course_ his umbrella was home. Victor had failed to check the forecast for the day as the morning sun had shone from bright, clear sky. With his mind’s eye, Victor could see the umbrella where it was currently leaning against the corner right beside his front door. Well, it wasn’t of much use to him now as he jumped puddles in an attempt to avoid getting his shoes completely soaked. There were droplets running down his face, plastering his hair on his face and dripping off the tip of his nose.

Upon getting home Victor slammed the door of his apartment shut and glared at his umbrella like it was its fault he was currently soaking wet to the bone. He hung his jacket on a hanger and spread the rest of his clothes on the backs of the chairs around the table. His new briefcase with a cross-body strap was damp on the outside, but luckily the rain hadn’t gotten to his laptop. Victor glanced at the time from his phone and realized he needed to go take a shower now if he wanted to have one.

He was going to be meeting Yuuri for dinner. Victor tossed his socks and boxers into the hamper and stepped into the shower.

After drying his hair and selecting some dry clothes from his closet, Victor glanced at his phone that was flashing a notification. Victor checked the message that had come while he had been in the shower.

A few seconds later, he lowered the phone back on the table with a sinking feeling in his stomach. The message was still open on the screen and he glanced at it as if to make sure it was really there. Sadly, it was.

The message was a short apologetic text from Yuuri, asking for a raincheck on their dinner.

Victor glanced out of the window and smiled grimly. He doubted this sudden cancellation had anything to do with the actual rain currently pouring outside. Sighing, he typed in a reply, claiming that it was okay and hopefully some other time soon. The words in the message bubble looked hollow and fake. Victor wanted to call Yuuri and ask what was up, but somehow the tone of Yuuri’s message didn’t invite further contact.

Victor wondered if it had been something he said or _didn’t_ say. But then again, from Yuuri’s elusive replies and from the letters earlier he had concluded there was something going on with Yuuri. Something he was unwilling to talk about with Victor, at least yet. Victor sighed and quickly checked his Instagram. There were no new pictures on Yuuri’s account, and he wasn’t present in Phichit’s recent photos either. _Is this online stalking_? Victor wondered as he put the phone down.

Victor tossed the clothes he was supposed to wear for the date on a shelf in the closet and pondered his options. He stood in the middle of the living room in his boxers and stared at the rain pounding outside. He didn’t feel like going out again without a reason, but he also didn’t have anything edible at home. He had kind of been counting on eating dinner with Yuuri.

In the end, Victor ordered a takeaway delivery and sat on the couch, watching stupid comedy reruns on TV and munching on crunchy spring rolls and sweet-n-sour chicken. He flicked from one channel to another, unable to concentrate on any one thing for too long.

It took Victor embarrassingly long to finish his food because of two reasons. First of all, he wasn’t very hungry, so there were long pauses in between bites as he stared at the TV screen with glazed eyes, not really comprehending what has happening in the show he was watching. Secondly, he stubbornly ate the entire meal using chopsticks, which in turn meant that there were even longer pauses in between bites simply because he was unable to keep anything between the sticks long enough to insert it in his mouth. There was a considerable amount of sticky rice and some vegetable pieces on the floor by the time he was done, and Victor absently cleaned the mess with the napkins that had come with the takeaway boxes.

The night ahead seemed very long. He had been planning on spending most of the night with Yuuri, and now suddenly there wasn’t anything to do. Victor tried to write his dissertation, but after reading the same paragraph of an article for the sixth time he realized there was no way he would be able to concentrate on his research. Then he tried to read a book that he’d already read and liked, but it couldn’t capture his interest. After that, he tried a completely new book. It was the first of the trilogy Yuuri had talked about, but in his current state of mind Victor associated the novel with Yuuri and couldn’t keep reading.

There was nothing on TV either, and as he browsed idly through Netflix nothing caught his interest. Eventually he drifted on YouTube and put on an hour-long cute animals compilation. He lounged on the couch, every now and then glancing absently at the fluffy animals wobbling on the laptop screen. He kind of wished he had a dog, because then he’d at least have company and something to do. Walking a dog in the pouring rain sounded better than what he was currently doing. But he didn’t want to get a dog because his apartment was so tiny; the poor thing would die of boredom in a space so small. For a moment Victor briefly dreamed of a bigger apartment, but the knowledge of the rent prices kept him grounded in reality. In his current situation, neither a bigger apartment nor a dog was an option, sadly.

Victor glanced around the apartment. It was still pretty neat after his hurricane of a clean-up a while back, but the signs of someone living in the apartment were creeping back. There were stacks of papers on the table, a dirty sock beside the bed and another halfway across the floor, a coffee stain on the floor near the kitchenette doorway and some clothes piling up on one of the chairs. He could always clean up the apartment, but he didn’t feel like it. Eventually he walked over to the chair next to the window and sorted out the pile of clothes anyway, just to do _something_. After he had tossed most of the clothes into the laundry hamper, he returned to the table and glanced out of the window.

The clouds were breaking apart and it was getting darker. The weather clearing up did nothing to cheer Victor up, though. He felt like the sky should have kept pouring rain. It would have suited his mood better.

Victor was aware of being just a bit melodramatic, but he didn’t care.

He sat down on the windowsill and pushed the window open. A gush of fresh-after-rain air blew into the room and rustled the papers on the table. In the end of the alley he could see people going about their daily lives, but this time he didn’t want to pay more attention to the life of the city. Instead, he looked up between the close-built walls of the buildings, toward the sky where the clouds were slowly drifting apart and giving way to a clear sky.

Victor bounced his leg on the floor and pulled out his phone. He checked Phichit’s Instagram feed as if on reflex, but there were no new photos. For a moment he pondered if he could send a message to Phichit and ask if everything was okay with Yuuri. He tapped open the inbox, but then backed straight out of it. That would have seemed desperate, not to mention stalkerish. He breathed in the cool summer night, the scents of the city amplified by the rainfall. He kind of wanted to go out for a walk, but it felt stupid to go alone.

Victor sighed and wished Yuuri was here.

 

~

 

Victor wondered what the protocol was in these kinds of situations. Was he supposed to wait for Yuuri to contact him, seeing as it was Yuuri who had canceled their date? Or could he approach Yuuri and ask about a possibility to arrange a new date?

Next day at work was torture. Concentrating on anything was impossible, and Victor kept whipping his phone out of his pocket every five minutes, because he was _sure_ that it had vibrated.

It hadn’t.

As the clock neared four, Victor sighed. He wasn’t looking forward to the weekend either, because he’d have to come and sort out some of the work he had failed to finish today anyway. Well, at least it would give him something to do other than sit around and wait for a message.

Victor texted Chris as he got off work. He knew Chris was working that night, so he figured he might go see the other man at the nightclub. Victor didn’t particularly enjoy nightclubs these days; he’d had his fair share of those a few years ago. But he figured he might hang out a bit, have a few beers and chat with Chris when he wasn’t busy with customers. Anything to avoid sitting at home staring at a wall.

Victor didn’t bother showering after work. He just changed his clothes and went out to the corner deli to get dinner. The deli’s blue-frosted cupcakes seemed to mock him from their glass casing while he waited for his burrito to be made.

 _Get yourself together_ , Victor told himself as he walked home with his burrito in hand. _You’ve had like four dates and there were no promises made_.

Well, technically it had been five meetings and if he went by the weird calculating system he’d invented it was more like eight, but whatever. It didn’t change the fact that he shouldn’t be this invested in something that had only been going on for such a short time.

Again, Victor’s brain helpfully reminded him that they had, in fact, been exchanging letters for nearly two months before meeting one another face to face.

Victor tried not to think about the most awful scenario his mind could think of, but it kept rolling back on the conveyer belt supplying his endless streams of thoughts until he finally picked it up like it was the heaviest baggage he had to drag home from the airport that was his mind. Victor felt like he was opening Pandora’s box as he finally let the thought roam free, because it immediately latched onto his fears and whispered softly, _maybe Yuuri just got bored?_

Victor rolled the thought back and forth and thought back to their last meeting. No, it didn’t seem plausible. At least he hoped it wasn’t plausible. On the train back from the aquarium trip, Yuuri had rested his head on Victor’s shoulder for most of the way, and their fingers had been loosely laced on Victor’s knee. Upon saying goodbye at the station where they had to take separate trains, Yuuri had kissed Victor and overall, there had been no indication of boredom of any kind.

Victor came home from the deli and ate his burrito while a YouTube playlist consisting of corny 80s hits played in the background.

Somehow, even after just five meetings, everything he did or experienced somehow led his thoughts to Yuuri.

It wasn’t like he was _purposefully_ torturing himself with the music or blue cupcakes or whatever. Or maybe he was, who knew. _Emotions are weird_ , Victor thought, and stared at the opposite wall where one of his movie posters was in the process of falling off the wall one corner at a time.

Victor lounged on the couch flipping through a magazine he found lying around. Chris had probably brought it over and left it behind, because Victor was fairly certain he’d never bought a single issue of Men’s Fitness. The headlines and articles were absolutely ridiculous: “ _Workout: Get 3-D shoulders!”_ He was pretty sure that everyone on the planet already had three-dimensional shoulders whether they worked out or not. Victor tried to imagine a person with two-dimensional shoulders and then slammed the magazine shut with a huff.

He had never been a particularly active person, so aside from walking to work and everywhere else that was within reasonable distance, he didn’t get that much exercise. Thankfully his parents’ heritage included pretty good genes in that aspect, so he stayed in shape naturally if he cared to give any thought to what he ate. Well, he rarely gave any thought to it, but since he could still fit into a suit he’d bought when he was twenty he wasn’t too worried. Victor didn’t wear the suit anymore because quite frankly the cut was awful and the shade of gray clashed with his hair, but he kept it around and tried it on every now and then just to see if it still fit him.

Victor checked his clothes for burrito stains and decided to swap his t-shirt for a button-up. He donned a suit jacket on top of it and tousled his hair in front of the bathroom mirror. It would have to do, because he wasn’t in the mood to do anything to his hair. Luckily it settled more nicely on its own after the haircut, so it looked decent even without much effort.

The club Chris worked at was in a posh downtown block, too far for Victor to walk, so a bit after nine he walked to the closest subway station and took a train. He stared at the opposite window of the car. There was another person sitting straight across from him so he couldn’t see himself in the opposite window, but in the reflection he could see the spot beside him which was currently empty. It was the spot where Yuuri had leaned on his shoulder after their aquarium date. Victor sighed and spent the rest of the train ride leaning his elbows on his thighs and staring at the floor in front of him.

“Well you look awfully cheerful,” Chris remarked sarcastically as Victor sat down on the high chair in front of the bar. As if working on autopilot, Chris set a napkin in front of Victor. “What can I get you?”

The napkin had the name of the club printed on it in subtle gold lettering. This was the sort of club where Victor wouldn’t have hung out in if his friend didn’t work there. Hell, he wasn’t sure if they would even let him in if his friend didn’t work there.

Victor shrugged as a response to the question Chris had asked.

Chris pursed his lips thoughtfully. “That bad? Let me fix you something that’ll cheer you up.”

Victor followed with his eyes as Chris darted here and there behind the counter and tossed ingredients into a shaker. There was a lot of booze finding its way into the shaker, so Victor made a mental note to not drink it too fast. Chris knew exactly how to make a cocktail that had _all_ the booze but tasted like juice.

When Victor got the drink in front of him, he tried to offer a twenty to Chris, but the other man shook his head and shoved the money back. “The first one is on the me, because you definitely look like you need it.”

Victor sighed and put the note back into his wallet. It was no use arguing with Chris; besides Victor could just slip a note into the tip jar later when Chris wasn’t looking.

“So, what happened with Yuuri?” Chris asked as he piled clean glasses behind the bar.

Victor sighed again. “I don’t know. He just canceled our dinner at the last minute.”

Chris frowned. “Did he say why?”

“No, just that he was really sorry but he needed to postpone the date.” Victor poked his drink with the plastic stick in the glass. He sipped it cautiously. It was just as he had anticipated; very strong but didn’t taste like it at all.

“Okay, but—oh, hold on, I’ll be right back,” Chris said and paced to the other end of the bar where two women stood waiting. “Hello, how are you two lovely ladies doing tonight? What can I get you?” Chris asked them in a voice that was like silk; smooth and caressing.

Victor followed the transaction with interest. Chris was in his element in an environment like this. He was good at reading people, and he could offer them a bartender who was sassy, smart, flirty, empathetic or charming—or all of the above at the same time. He could flirt cheekily with men and women alike then turn around and offer a sympathetic listening ear when someone needed it. 

“Alright, have a wonderful night, you two!” Chris called after the retreating women. He paced back to Victor’s end of the bar. “Now, where were we?”

“It’s fun watching you work,” Victor said, trying to avoid returning to the sore topic they had started discussing earlier. “You look like you enjoy it.”

Chris shrugged. “Yeah. Those psychology classes I took in college come in handy more often than you’d think,” he said with a laugh.

“Do you ever think what it would be like if you got a job that correlates even remotely with your college degree?” Victor tilted his head. Chris had studied elementary education and aimed to become a teacher, but jobs with reasonable pay and benefits were difficult to come by.

“Well, then I’d have to be up during daytime and not all night,” Chris said. “But to me it doesn’t matter if I work nights or days. The pay with tips is better than a teacher’s salary, so this job has that going for it. And once the customers have had enough booze they all behave like a bunch of middle-schoolers anyway, so I get to put my degree to good use here as well.”

Victor laughed. “What, you talk to the drunks the way you’d talk to middle-schoolers?”

Chris grinned. “Pretty much. I mean, their cognitive level is pretty much the same at that point. The only difference is that I don’t have to teach them how to derivate an equation and what happened during the Civil War. So that’s a win.”

Victor smiled into his drink and took another cautious sip. Despite making fun of the cognitive level of middle-schoolers, he was sure Chris would have been the teacher all middle-schoolers would want; the cool kind who talked to them as equals and not down to them as Victor recalled most of his teachers doing.

Chris could be described as a massive flirt with an endlessly dirty mind and innuendos for each finger, which had been why the eyebrows of most of his college classmates had skyrocketed nearly to their hairline when they had learned Chris wanted to become a teacher. But Victor could see that he would fare excellently in that occupation. He had the ability to read people and step into their shoes, and he could adjust his behavior to almost any given situation. Most often he simply _chose_ not to.

“So, anyway. Don’t think I don’t notice you trying to change the subject,” Chris said. “Have you heard anything since the message?”

Victor hung his head and then looked up desperately. “No. I sent him a message acknowledging his message and said we could postpone. But now it’s all kind of up in the air, because I don’t know if I can text him or if I have to wait for him to text me.”

“Hmm.” Chris nodded and dug fresh lemon slices from a fridge behind the bar and added them into the bowl next to the sodas. “Well, if you start bombarding him with messages, that’s a surefire way to scare him away. I’d wait until he contacts you. Rules of dating.”

That’s what Victor thought, but he found himself impossibly needy and wanting to contact Yuuri immediately, rules of dating be damned. He gulped down a third of his juice-like drink before remembering it probably wasn’t wise to drink anything Chris had made at such a pace.

“Or you could ask the friend, what was his name again?” Chris pouted his lips thoughtfully. “Be right back,” he said and in a heartbeat he was at the other end of the bar again, batting his lashes at a young man who was nervously asking for a vodka tonic.

“Alright, for that I’m going to have to see your ID,” Chris said with a radiant smile.

The young man pulled out a driver’s license. Chris looked at it. “Okay, we’re good here, Kevin. One vodka tonic coming right up!”

Victor was almost envious of the easy-going flirt Chris could summon at will. Victor remembered he had been really good with people at some point in his life. In college, he had never lacked friends or people to talk to. It just seemed the older he got and the more he buried himself in his dissertation, the less he socialized with people. Doing a doctorate had led to him living like a hermit in his own head for quite a while now. His only social contacts were Chris, and lately Yuuri and by extension Phichit. Once again he was struck with a sinking feeling: what if this was going to be his life? Working in a museum, meeting Chris in coffee shops and at the club where Chris worked?

There had to be something more. Victor felt he had found something more with Yuuri, but now he didn’t know for sure anymore. It felt like there had been something building between them, but now the entire foundation had been knocked over. Victor wasn’t sure what had made Yuuri cancel their plans, and he swirled the drink in his glass and stared at it like it would have answers for him.

Victor lowered the glass on the bar, because he suddenly remembered something Yuuri had said in his letters a long time ago. Okay, just over a month ago, but somehow it felt like more time had passed since. Yuuri had said that he was afraid of people getting bored of him and leaving. In fact, he had said it face to face as well. Well, maybe not using those exact words, but it had been implied.

Perhaps Yuuri was pushing him away because he was afraid of getting attached? Perhaps his way of dealing with his fear was pushing people away if they threatened to get too close to hurt him.

Seeing as this was the only plausible explanation to the sudden cancellation, Victor decided that had to be it. Hadn’t Sherlock Holmes said, _when you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth?_

Victor wasn’t exactly sure if the original Sherlock Holmes had ever said that in the novels. Victor had only watched the latest TV series, and only because Benedict Cumberbatch was hot as all hell and his accent caused the best kinds of shivers in Victor’s auditory cortex. But if Benedict Cumberbatch had said that, it must be true. Or at the very least, the thought was encouraging.

Victor was typing a message to be sent to Phichit’s Instagram inbox when Chris came back from flirting with his customer.

“Well, did Kevin leave a good tip?” Victor asked without looking up from his phone.

“I got a tenner.” Chris shrugged. “And his phone number.”

“Way to go, Chris!” Victor glanced up and grinned.

“Well, at least one of us is getting some tonight after work,” Chris said with a wink and grimaced when Victor glared at him. “Sorry, bad joke,” he amended right away with an apologetic smile.

Victor sighed and looked down to the message he was typing. “Glad someone is getting some.”

“Are you messaging the friend, what was the name again?”

“Phichit,” Victor replied. “And yeah. I’m asking him in a roundabout way if everything is okay with Yuuri and if I have done something or if there’s something I can do.”

Chris shook his head and slammed a hand over his heart. “Man, that Yuuri is one lucky guy.”

Victor rolled his eyes.

“Another one?” Chris asked when Victor finished his drink.

Victor shrugged. It was not like he had anything better to do besides drink and wait for a response.

Phichit replied to Victor’s message later, when Victor was on his third drink and the world was beginning to feel fuzzy.

“He replied,” Victor said as he pulled his phone out of his pocket.

“What does he say?” Chris leaned over the bar.

“That it was nice of me to ask, that Yuuri is okay and he’s going to contact me when he can.”

Chris furrowed his brow. “So, generic bullshit. What does that even mean, _‘when he can’_?”

Victor wished he knew.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here comes the angst, lol. *whispers* _And so it begins._ (This fic will have a happy ending, though, but it just takes a while to get there...)  
>  -  
> Also, Chris kind of just waltzed in and demanded a backstory, so he's getting some more spotlight on him. :D  
> -  
> Chapter title is from Bloc Party’s [Kreuzberg](https://youtu.be/sT6m_PkK2-E).  
> -  
> 


	12. in the corner of your smile

 

Victor woke up to a shredding headache and his mouth tasted like someone had dumped a metric ton of ashtray dust in there. He was lying on his side, and from the couch backrest against his back he concluded he wasn’t in his own bed. Victor tensed and cautiously cracked his eyes open to take in his surroundings. Once he realized he was tucked in on the living room couch in Chris’s apartment, he relaxed and then winced at the sudden wave of nausea washing over him.

The awful sensations overwhelming his body right now reminded him why he didn’t drink like he used to in college.

Back in his college days, he could easily down beer, vodka and whatever else happened to come his way and still be okay enough to attend classes next day. These days if he drank even half of the amount he used to, his body declared a general state of emergency and went on shutdown mode for days after.

Getting older sucked.

There was a glass of water sitting on the coffee table next to the couch and a bottle of painkillers beside the glass. _Bless Chris, he is the best friend anyone could ask for_. Victor stared at the glass apprehensively and estimated the distance. He soon decided the glass might just as well be on Mars, because he couldn’t bring his hand to cross the distance between the couch and the table. Victor glared at his shaking hand, but the strain of moving his eyes caused another surge of nausea and pounding headache. It was like someone had gotten a hold of the pain receptors in his brain and was pinching and tugging them in random order while giggling maniacally. Victor could almost hear the giggles. Was this what going crazy felt like?

He moved his head so he could see the door to Chris’s bedroom. It was closed. Victor snorted as he noticed there was also a sock hanging off the doorknob; possibly due to that guy who had given Chris his number early in the evening. Even in his half-dead hungover state Victor found the sock gesture funny, albeit completely unnecessary. As if he was going to barge into Chris’s bedroom without knocking. He remembered all too well those times in college when he had walked in on Chris. Well, all _two times_ it had happened. After that he had learned to bang on the door and shout through it until Chris said it was okay to come in.

With a groan, Victor turned to his back and closed his eyes until the pounding in his head after the movement dulled into a slight throb. His brain felt like it was replaced with TV static with a background noise that was right at that annoying frequency that couldn’t be ignored. The nausea came and went in waves, and he felt like he had to swallow even though there wasn’t anything in his mouth to swallow, not even saliva.

Eventually, after some struggling, Victor managed to move himself in a sitting position. It was a lengthy process. First he pulled himself up from his lying position and leaned sideways into the backrest of the couch, swallowing rapidly to keep his stomach acids where they belonged. He gradually lowered his feet on the floor, one at a time, and then finally slumped into a sitting position with his elbows on his knees and head resting in his hands.

Death started to feel like a viable option at this point.

Victor finally managed to reach out and grasp the glass of water. He drank a cautious sip and waited to see if it would launch his stomach into a rage. When it didn’t, he risked another sip and then a bigger gulp. Halfway through the glass his stomach felt like it was about to flip upside down, so Victor lowered the glass and leaned his face into his hands again, hoping for a quick, merciful death. The water in his stomach was sloshing around as if it was searching for a way out. Victor tried not to think about what the way out would be, but his brain helpfully supplied that the only way out was back up the way it went in. The thought made him dry-heave.

He heard the bedroom door open, but didn’t look up.

“Morning.” Chris sounded way too cheerful and alive. “I see you’ve woken up and you look like you’re feeling very fresh right now.”

“It’s your fault for making me those treacherous cocktails,” Victor rasped accusingly to the floor he was staring at through his fingers.

“You want coffee?” Chris asked, and Victor heard him pad into the kitchen.

The thought of coffee made another string of dry-heaving gasps bounce Victor’s stomach up and down. “No thanks,” he croaked and leaned back into the couch, staring at the ceiling and eventually closing his eyes to make the world disappear into darkness.

Another set of feet padded out of the bedroom. It was probably that guy, whatever his name was, Kevin? Victor didn’t bother to open his eyes to look. He heard them talking in the kitchen in low voices, and then someone walked past him into the bathroom.

The sound of shower running made Victor open his eyes. Shower might be good. Maybe it would make him feel more alive and less like a trembling mess. The ceiling seemed to stare back at him mockingly. Victor leaned forward again and grabbed the bottle of painkillers. He unscrewed the cap and dumped two painkillers on his palm. He swallowed the pills and chased them down with the rest of the water that was left in the glass on the table.

 _Here’s to hoping they stay where they are_ , Victor thought after swallowing. He stared at the black TV screen on the opposite wall and waited. His stomach sloshed and churned, but didn’t try to return the painkillers to the outside world. After a minute, Victor ventured to try standing up. He tossed aside the covers that were still tangled in his lap and stood up. He was wearing his jeans but somebody—probably Chris—had stripped his shoes and socks off and placed them beside the couch. Victor’s button-up shirt was hanging neatly on the backrest of a chair nearby and he only had his sleeveless undershirt on. His phone was sitting on the corner of the coffee table, and he reached to take it, wincing as the movement sent sparks of pain through his pain receptors again.

There was a string of notifications on the screen, but trying to concentrate on reading them was too much, so Victor just stuffed the phone into his pocket and made his way to the chair to put his shirt on. Then he walked over to the kitchen. Somehow the distance felt longer than he remembered.

Chris was making coffee with a French press. Victor leaned on the doorframe and held his breath for a moment, unsure if he liked the scent of freshly ground coffee beans right now.

Chris was a coffee freak who had things like a French press and coffee grinder in his kitchen. He had perfected coffee-making into an art form that was about sixteen levels above Victor’s _boil water and add instant coffee_ routine.

Chris glanced at Victor over his shoulder. “Hey, how are you feeling?”

“Awful.” Victor pursed his lips and glanced down as something pressed against his leg in passing. Chris’s cat had appeared in the kitchen and was currently bumping her head against Chris’s leg in hopes of getting breakfast.

Chris grinned and leaned down to pet the cat. “Maybe the last cocktail was a bit too much. Or more like the last _three_ ; each of them was _supposed_ to be the last one but you kept looking like you were going to start sobbing any moment so I always ended up making you a new one.”

“Ugh,” Victor said. “Some friend you are.”

Chris at least had the decency to try to look a bit ashamed. He picked up the cat’s food bowl from the floor and opened a cupboard to take out some cat food. “But hey, I got you here safely instead of letting you go home alone like you insisted,” he then said. “Honestly, I wasn’t sure if you’d make it one block before passing out.”

“Isn’t part of the job description of a bartender that you’re supposed to _stop_ serving alcohol to people who are too drunk?” Victor mumbled, dragging his fingers through his hair.

Chris shrugged as he opened a can of wet food and dumped it into the cat’s bowl. “Sure. But I knew you’d be safe, because I wasn’t going to let you out of my sight.”

Victor would have rolled his eyes if the thought of such series of muscle movements wasn’t so painful. “Fine, whatever.”

“And I did stop you from drunk-dialing Yuuri,” Chris pointed out with a raised eyebrow.

Victor blinked. “I tried to call Yuuri?”

“Like four times. Eventually I had to confiscate your phone.” Chris laughed. He lowered the bowl on the floor and the floofy white animal was immediately there, bumping her head against Chris’s hand and then attacking the contents of the bowl. The scent of fish from the cat’s bowl made Victor’s stomach turn.

Someone came out of the bathroom and Victor cautiously turned to glance over his shoulder at the newcomer.

It wasn’t that whatshisname guy Kevin after all. Victor wrinkled his brow. Whatshisface had been shorter and younger. The guy currently standing in the living room with a towel wrapped around his hips was taller and definitely closer to Chris in age, perhaps even older. His hair was wet, but it looked like it was brown, and he had blue eyes.

“Hi,” the guy said.

Victor swallowed and willed the painkillers to stay in his stomach. “Hello,” he said weakly. “I should probably get out of your hair,” he continued, turning back to Chris. “Sorry that you had to babysit me.”

“You know it’s no problem, Vitya,” Chris said with a warm smile. “I hope Yuuri comes around soon enough.”

Victor remembered the notifications on his phone screen. For all he knew, Yuuri had already texted him. He couldn’t check right now, though, because Chris’s mystery man was approaching him with an extended hand.

Victor shook the offered hand with the firmest grasp he could muster in his current state. “Nice to meet you, I’m Victor,” he said.

“Nice to meet you too. I’m Marc,” the man said with a warm smile. “I’m going to get dressed now, so if you’ll excuse me.” He vanished into the bedroom.

“Who’s this?” Victor pointed a thumb in the direction of the bedroom. “You haven’t told me you have a mystery man.”

Chris actually _blushed_ a little. Victor blinked. He hadn’t known Chris was physically capable of blushing.

“It’s a new development,” Chris said defensively.

Victor looked at Chris knowingly. “Uh-huh, and that’s why he walks around like he’s at home?”

“Well, he may have spent the night a few times,” Chris admitted. “Or he maybe kind of lives here, part-time? I don’t know.” Chris turned to pour the coffee he had made into two mugs. The tips of his ears looked a little pink.

Victor stared at Chris’s back. Had he really been so wrapped up in his own head with his Yuuri-related thoughts lately? Victor was the shittiest friend in existence; so wrapped in his own drama that he had missed his best friend finding a partner. He searched his memory for their recent conversations and tried to think if Chris had dropped any hints. “Why haven’t you said anything?”

Chris shrugged and turned toward Victor with a coffee mug in his hand. “I wasn’t sure if it was worth telling,” he said. “But I guess it is.” The slow smile that spread on his face was somehow hesitant but very radiant.

Victor didn’t think he’d ever seen Chris like this. Chris had always been so sure about himself and everything in his life, but now he seemed a little afraid, even vulnerable.

Victor knew exactly what that felt like.

He shook his head. He could mull over Yuuri later, right now it was more important to get information out of Chris.

“So, how old is he, what does he do, how long have you been seeing him?” Victor asked in rapid succession. He couldn’t be sure when the guy was going to reemerge from the bedroom.

“He’s a couple of years older than me, like your age, and—“ Chris cut himself off when the bedroom door opened again. “I’ll text you later,” Chris mouthed as Marc appeared at the kitchen doorway. Victor let him pass into the kitchen and returned to his position hugging the doorframe. He felt like the doorframe was the only thing holding him up at this point, so he didn’t want to let go.

Chris’s cat glanced up from the food bowl at Marc, but continued eating. Yeah, this guy had definitely been around more than a couple of times for that suspicious white floof-ball to treat him with such indifference.

Victor watched as Marc accepted the second coffee mug from Chris and when he turned around to face Victor in the doorway, Chris’s hand was somewhere behind him. Victor could guess Chris was currently grabbing his ass.

 _And that’s my cue to leave_. Victor detached himself from the doorframe cautiously, excused himself into the bathroom to see if he looked human enough to exit the apartment. The reflection staring back at him in the bathroom mirror looked ghastly, but there was nothing Victor could do about it right now.

When he went back to the kitchen door to say goodbye, Chris and Marc were sitting at the table with their legs entangled beneath it, sipping coffee and reading each other headlines of the day’s news off their phones. Victor looked at the domestic scene for a moment and felt a pang of longing.

“So I’m off now,” Victor said, and they both turned to look at him.

“Are you sure you’re not going to die on the way home? You look pale. I mean, pale even for _you_.” Chris looked at him from head to toe. “Well, at least the worst shaking is over. I think.” Chris grinned.

“Oh, screw you,” Victor said automatically. “I’ll live.” He was like 85% sure he would. His stomach wasn’t sloshing around like it was seasick anymore, and the painkillers were beginning to cut the worst edge off his headache. He still felt weak and slightly nauseous, but he was well enough to walk to the nearest subway station. He wasn’t looking forward to the train ride, though.

On the train Victor finally dug out the phone to check his notifications. Most of them were from Instagram, where people had liked his newest photo. Victor tapped the app open. _What photo?_

The photo in itself wasn’t anything bad, just a selfie with a cocktail and Chris grinning in the background. Victor winced a little at how drunk he looked, though. But the caption… Victor sighed, closed his eyes briefly and opened them again. Could he get any more melodramatic?

 

_Drowning my sorrows. My fav bartender @christophe-gc is helping. #onemorecocktail #booze #drinkselfie #nightclub #lifesucks #stoodupbyaprettyboy_

 

Seriously, what had he been thinking? It was clear that Yuuri was aware of the caption, because Phichit had liked the photo a few hours back. Victor pushed the phone into his pocket and buried his face in his hands for the rest of the train ride.

 

~

 

 

Victor spent the rest of Saturday lounging around and tending to his hangover. Chris was texting him about Marc. It was like ceaseless rapid-fire of message bubbles on the screen of his phone; as if Victor had opened the flood gates and now information was pouring out of Chris without any filter.

Really, without _any filter whatsoever_. Victor blushed at some of the messages he got, and had to type in a reply of, _eww Chris, TMI! I did **not** need to know that!_

As he was fidgeting with his phone, momentarily Victor wondered if he should delete the photo on his Instagram, but eventually he ended up just removing the most obviously dramatic hashtags from the caption. The damage was already done, though. Victor stared at the photo of himself and chewed on his lip. He would have paid to hear what Yuuri thought of the hashtag so obviously aimed at him. Victor sighed. Why was it that his drunken self had insisted on behaving like a teenager and posting his drama all over social media?

When he was feeling slightly better, he went to the diner to get some food. The table he had shared with Yuuri on his previous visit was occupied so Victor took the one beside it and ordered some scrambled eggs and hash browns with extra bacon. He also got a stack of pancakes because his stomach was finally waking up and realizing he hadn’t eaten anything since his dinner last night. He ate until he felt like he would have to just drop down to the ground and roll back home. He somehow managed to stay upright for the walk home and then he spent the rest of the night in a horizontal position on the couch, re-watching the fourth season of Friends because he happened upon a channel that had an all-weekend marathon going on.

On Sunday, Victor had to work all day because he had slacked off for two days. _Never again_ , he swore as he was unpacking a shipment in a storage room with no windows for the better part of Sunday. There was still a slightly queasy feeling in the pit of his stomach due to Friday’s drinking escapades, and being enclosed in a windowless storage space wasn’t helping. Unfortunately, he needed to stay in the storage room to check the items against a shipment list and make sure the items were in the condition they had been when they were shipped off from London. Then he needed to categorize the items and insert them into the museum’s own system so they could be added to the current exhibitions. He wished he had an intern to boss around and help him, but the volunteering high-schoolers didn’t often do Sundays. Well, most of the other staff didn’t do Sundays either, aside from the people needed to run the museum during opening hours.

The good thing about everyone else enjoying a day off was that Victor got to work in relative peace and quiet.

The bad thing about it was that the peace and quiet gave him _way_ too much time to think.

Victor stared down at the list of items and tried to stop his thoughts that were going around in circles. At lunch, he stared at his sandwich and tried to stop his thought that were _still_ going around in circles. Upon exiting the museum late in the afternoon, he stared at the pavement ahead and tried to stop the damn thoughts that were seemingly stuck on a never-ending loop.

Every time he tried to stop thinking about Yuuri and the last-minute cancellation, he failed and the thoughts just kept coming.

Chris texted him and asked if he wanted to join them for dinner. _Them_. Victor stared at the message bubble for a while and then politely declined. He wasn’t in the mood to watch Chris flirt and get handsy with his mystery man while Victor was third-wheeling at the same table.

Victor went home and spent the rest of the night aggressively focusing on his dissertation. He re-read the last few pages he had written and spent ages correcting his references and adding more text in between and deleting some paragraphs that made no sense. But despite his focused determination, somewhere in the back of his mind a tiny voice kept reminding him of Yuuri.

“Shut up,” Victor finally said aloud in his empty apartment. “Shut up, shut up, _shut up_!”

His phone chimed a notification and Victor almost threw the device at the nearest wall, but instead he inhaled deeply and checked the message. The message was from Yuuri.

 

_Hey, I’m sorry about my disappearing act. What are you doing on Tuesday?_

 

Victor checked his calendar. Tuesday? What was Tuesday?

Oh, 4th of July.

Victor usually didn’t observe the holiday in any special way. It felt somewhat weird to celebrate the American independence, because even though he had lived here for years, he wasn’t a citizen. Come to think of it, did he even have the right to celebrate the American independence? Victor doubted he was going to be tossed in jail if he did, but somehow in the recent years he had mostly stayed at home on the fourth and enjoyed a day off with some takeaway and a book or a movie or something. Sometimes he went out for a walk in the night to catch the fireworks, but that was the extent of his celebrations.

Victor typed in:

_I don’t have plans. Did you have something in mind?_

 

He tried to sound nonchalant even though he kind of wanted to on an all-caps squee-fest because Yuuri was back. Yuuri was back and he wasn’t bored or freaking out about the hashtag. Instead, he was asking about Victor’s plans in a way that could only mean one thing: Victor was about get asked on a date.

He ignored the voice in his head that said he probably should have been more annoyed about Yuuri’s disappearing act, but right now he wasn’t. Victor figured if it was going to be a constant theme he could get properly annoyed, but for now there wasn’t much to base his annoyance on. Yuuri was in no way obligated to tell him anything. They hadn’t agreed on exclusivity or discussed where they stood. Yuuri could do whatever he wanted. Or whoever he wanted.

Thinking about Yuuri with someone else sent sparks of jealousy down Victor’s spine, though, so he hoped that Yuuri’s disappearance had nothing to do with another person being involved.

Victor’s phone buzzed.

 

_I don’t have any plans either. You wanna do nothing at all with me? :)_

 

Victor grinned at his phone.

_Doing nothing with you sounds good. Where should we meet to do nothing?_

 

There was a momentary pause in the messages, then Yuuri replied:

_How about outside the diner where we went that one time?_

 

~

 

Meeting Yuuri this time felt more awkward than on their previous dates. Yuuri was a little quiet and reserved, and he apologized for canceling on Victor but offered no explanation as to why he had canceled. He shifted his eyes after the apology and adjusted the backpack slung over his shoulder. Victor bit his tongue to not ask about it. He didn’t want to make the atmosphere even more awkward than it currently was. He pushed the inquisitive thoughts to the back of his mind for now and tried to concentrate on the present moment.

They wandered aimlessly for a while, pointing out particularly tacky 4th of July decorations in shop windows to each other and watching people in their festive attires. The weather had somewhat cooled down since the end of June, and hanging outside was slightly more bearable. A few scattered clouds sailed overhead. Victor glanced up.

“What do you say, if we find a grocery store somewhere nearby, we could buy some food and have a picnic in the park?” he suggested. “That’s kind of like doing nothing, right?”

Yuuri looked at him with a slight smile and nodded. “I’d like that,” he said.

“Bet there are tons of other people in the park, but I can always come up with stories about them,” Victor mused, getting excited about the idea. Yuuri seemed to like it when he came up with those little story pieces about people.

Yuuri grinned a little. “You know, your stories kind of remind me of this character in a book I’m currently reading,” he said.

“Oh,” Victor said. “What book?”

“ _The Blind Assassin_ ,” Yuuri replied. He stopped to slip his backpack off his shoulder and opened the zipper. After a momentary digging his hand reappeared with a paperback novel which he passed on to Victor. 

Victor looked at the cover. “I’ve heard of the author but I’ve never read anything by her,” he said. He leafed through a couple of pages and then handed the book back to Yuuri, who slipped it back into his backpack and closed the zipper. “So, this character you said I resemble,” he continued. “Do I remind you of them in a good way or in a bad way?”

Yuuri’s eyes gleamed. “In a good way,” he said airily. “The premise is really interesting. I mean, there’s like a story, and within it another story, and within that a third story.”

Victor wrinkled his forehead. “Sounds confusing.”

Yuuri slung his backpack over his shoulder again and they walked down the street, searching for a place to buy food for their picnic. “It kind of is,” he said. “But once you get into it, it’s really intriguing.”

“Story-ception,” Victor mused.

Yuuri laughed. “Yeah, I guess. Basically the first layer is the ‘real life’ of the novel, and then the second is a novel written by someone in the real-life setting, and the third is a novel within that novel.”

“I think my brain just twisted itself into a knot thinking about that,” Victor said, raising one eyebrow. “So which layer am I? Or the character I resemble?”

“Hey look, I think that grocery store in the corner is open,” Yuuri remarked, pointing toward the next block. “And you’re on the third layer.” He paused for a moment. “But then again, the characters on the third level are based in the novel’s real-life level and the novel within that, so kind of like on all levels?”

“Jesus,” Victor muttered. “I’m not sure I’m following.”

Yuuri waved his hand in the air dismissively and laughed. “Well, I can show you what I mean when we get to the park,” he offered.

“Sounds good,” Victor said.

They went into the grocery store and Victor picked up a basket at the door.

“So, what do you usually eat when you’re on a picnic?” Victor asked, walking toward the fruit aisle. “I want grapes, and if they have ready-sliced watermelon, that too.”

Yuuri shrugged. “I have to admit I haven’t done much picnicking in recent years. I have this mental image of it including grapes and baguettes, though.”

“We should totally get a baguette!” Victor exclaimed. “And cream cheese.”

“What are you going to use to spread the cream cheese, though?” Yuuri asked, looking doubtful.

“They do have disposable cutlery here,” Victor pointed out.

Victor picked out some grapes and sliced melon, and after a moment’s hesitation also some strawberries. They headed out to the bread isle to pick a baguette, and he noticed the cutest selection of frosted mini cupcakes so of course he had to get those, too.

Yuuri was mostly following along, commenting on things like what flavor soda he preferred and what cream cheese he usually got.

When they got to the registers, Victor realized they had enough food to feed an army. “I’m going to have to call a tower crane to lift me up if we eat all this,” he said with a laugh as the mountain of food slid down the belt to the cashier.

Yuuri followed the advancing food mountain with his eyes and hummed thoughtfully. “Well, my mother always says that it’s better to bring too much food than too little, because if you get too much food you can always save the excess for later but if there’s too little nobody is happy.”

“Your mother seems like a wise woman,” Victor said as he slid his credit card into the machine to pay.

“She is.” Yuuri startled suddenly and looked at Victor accusingly. “Hey, why are you paying for this?”

Victor sighed. “You can pay me back later. I’m not counting by the dollar who’s paying what, and I’m hoping you’re not either.”

Yuuri muttered something under his breath, and Victor was momentarily afraid that he was one of _those people_ ; the ones who had spreadsheets about who owed what and how much. But Yuuri shrugged and allowed Victor to pay for the food mountain.

“I’ll get you next time,” Victor heard him mutter as he marched over to the other side of the register to help the bagger. Victor beamed at Yuuri’s sour expression.

The big lawn in the park was full of other picnic parties. Victor and Yuuri stood and took in the sight for a moment, then Victor glanced at Yuuri. “Yeah, how about we check the rocky hill a little that way?” he pointed a finger toward the trees. “It’s usually a bit quieter there.”

“Agreed,” Yuuri said.

The tiny hill was more secluded, mostly because it was surrounded by trees and required some climbing to get to.

When they got to the top, Victor could only see one family picnicking a little way downhill on the other side.

Yuuri glanced at him. “Is this where you kill me?” he joked.

Victor laughed. “I thought you were supposed to be the murderer,” he retorted.

“I left my ax home,” Yuuri said sadly.

“Spoon,” Victor corrected. Then he laughed as he realized from Yuuri’s confused expression that he didn’t know about the whole _spoon murderer_ thing Chris had come up with. Victor explained the concept briefly.

“Oh, that,” Yuuri grinned. “Phichit said something about it after you met him in the park. Well, I didn’t take my people-murdering spoon with me either.”

They sat down on the rocky surface and Victor started pulling food items out of the bags. Yuuri grabbed a bag and started doing the same, and soon they were both surrounded by copious amounts of food.

“This is ridiculous,” Victor sighed, looking around himself. “Look at all this food.”

“Better dig in,” Yuuri deadpanned. “Or we’ll be here until tomorrow.”

That wouldn’t be all that bad, really. Victor grinned to himself and glanced at Yuuri, who was opening a package of strawberries.

“Well, at least we’re uphill,” Victor said in a resigned tone as he broke a piece off the baguette. “You just need to give me a little push and gravity will do the rest. I’ll just roll through the city, wreaking havoc as I go.”

Yuuri almost choked on a strawberry as he laughed. Victor grinned, and the atmosphere felt a little lighter. It was rather tiresome to dance around everything, though. Victor was more accustomed to direct approaches to things, but it didn’t work all that well with Yuuri, so now he had to come up with new ways to deal with things. The thoughts were still nagging at him, though, so Victor stuffed a piece of baguette into his mouth to not blurt out anything that would ruin the moment.

“So,” Victor said after swallowing the piece of bread. “You promised to explain about the novel.”

“Oh, yeah.” Yuuri set his piece of baguette neatly on a napkin and turned to his backpack. “So in the novel within the novel in the novel…” he trailed off for a moment as if to count if he had the right amount of novels there. “…yeah, there is this storyline of a married woman who is having an affair, and her lover is telling her this story every time they meet in secret.” He stopped for a moment. “I don’t know, you kind of remind me of her lover, because of the stories you come up with about people.”

“Not because of the lover part?” Victor asked jokingly, and ducked as Yuuri tossed a grape at him. Yuuri was laughing, though, so Victor allowed himself a smug grin. “Can I see it? Like, a part in the novel where he’s telling the story?” Victor leaned closer as Yuuri flipped through the paperback novel and finally handed the book to him.

“That’s the beginning of the story-telling,” Yuuri explained as Victor followed the lines of text with his eyes and eventually flipped to the next page. “It’s kind of deep. Like, this part,” Yuuri turned the page again and pointed at a paragraph.

“Hey, I wasn’t finished with the page yet,” Victor said with a laugh. Yuuri’s enthusiasm was incredibly adorable.

“Oops, sorry.” Yuuri let go of the book. “I just really like the story that he tells her.”

“So it seems.” Victor tilted his head to the side and offered the book to Yuuri. “Would you read it for me?”

Yuuri blinked. “What, aloud?”

“Yeah,” Victor said. “It’s been a long time since someone has read something to me out loud.” In fact, he wasn’t sure if he even remembered a time when someone had read something aloud to him. For as long as he remembered, reading had always been a silent task.

Yuuri took the book, hesitating. “I don’t really know if I’m good at reading stuff aloud,” he muttered.

Victor didn’t say anything. He simply smiled and waited, looking at Yuuri expectantly. Eventually Yuuri opened the book from the page Victor had previously read and cleared his throat.

“ _The real name of the city was erased from memory by the conquerors, and this is why – say the taletellers – the place is now known only by the name of its own destruction. The pile of stones thus marks both an act of deliberate remembrance, and an act of deliberate forgetting. They’re fond of paradox in that region_.” Yuuri glanced up, but when Victor still said nothing, he turned back to the book and continued, “ _Each of the five tribes claims to have been the victorious attacker. Each recalls the slaughter with relish. Each believes it was ordained by their own god as righteous vengeance, because of the unholy practices carried on in the city. Evil must be cleansed with blood, they say. On that day the blood ran like water, so afterwards it must have been very clean_.”

When he got to the end of the short chapter, he placed the open book upside down on the rocky surface beside him. “I need to drink some soda,” he explained, pulling out one of the cans. “How about you continue?”

“But you’ve already read it,” Victor said. “Where’s the fun in that?”

“I haven’t read _all_ of it.”

They spent a good half an hour lazily passing the book between them and reading the parts of the novel that had the story bits in them. They were easy to spot in the book as they were the only parts where dialogue was not marked by quotations.

Yuuri was a calm reader, and his tone was amazingly expressive. Victor could have listened to him read 200-page instruction manuals if need be. Victor munched on a bunch of grapes as he listened to Yuuri’s voice. The story was interesting, sure, but he was more concentrated on how Yuuri sounded.

He liked watching Yuuri read, too. Victor leaned back into his elbows and watched Yuuri’s expressions as he read; the rise of his eyebrows every now and then and the way his eyes moved behind his glasses as he advanced along the lines of text. Yuuri’s hair was falling almost to his eyes now, and he kept sweeping it back as he was bent over the book. The hair was stubborn, though, and it fell back soon after, so it was a repeated motion of sweeping the hair back and the hair slowly creeping back to his eyes as he read.

When Yuuri handed the book to Victor, Victor put it down on the rocky surface. “We’ll have to save the rest of it for another time. Like they do in the book, you know.” Victor winked. In the parts they had been reading to each other the woman was always sneaking out to see her lover, who always ended his story with a cliffhanger to keep her coming back for more.

Yuuri nodded and reached for a package of cheese. He fished out a slice and munched on it. “You know, I should really expand my horizons on cheese,” Yuuri said thoughtfully after swallowing. “I mean, I always end up buying the same brand, even though there are so many different cheeses in the store. I’ve never had this one before but it’s really good.”

“You mean to tell me you’re stuck in your routines?” Victor teased. “Just like the rest of the ants in the anthill?”

Yuuri rolled his eyes. “Ha, funny. But yeah, I am.”

“You said in the art museum you don’t like change, but you still try to challenge yourself. So maybe you need to challenge yourself in the grocery store cheese aisle.” Victor smiled and winked.

“Are you mocking me?” Yuuri asked, pouting.

“It wouldn’t be this fun if the reaction wasn’t so cute,” Victor explained.

Yuuri huffed. “Okay, and once I’ve tackled the cheese aisle, what’s next? Yoghurt? Peanut butter shelf? Or go completely _wild_ and sample the laundry detergent selection?”

“Oh, but it would be really _weird_ to change laundry detergent, though,” Victor said, shocked. “I mean, it would be like smelling of someone else’s clothes.” The scent of the laundry detergent he used was kind of a fixed point in time and space for Victor. He remembered a few times he had hung out with Chris at his apartment and gotten something on his shirt, and Chris had helpfully washed and dried the shirt for him. Victor had always ended up putting the clean shirt into the wash again at home, because it had smelled somehow _wrong_.

Victor realized they hadn’t really been talking about small things like these before. Much of their conversation on paper and face to face had been very deep or completely whimsical; none of this everyday stuff people used on daily basis but never really discussed with other people. So they talked about what was their favorite fast food place, what was the best Marvel movie, and was it humanly possible to _not_ have a designated chair that was essentially just a laundry dump somewhere in one’s apartment.

They agreed that anyone who didn’t have a laundry dump chair was inherently a suspicious character. “If you studied the characters in a murder mystery novel, the one without a chair full of laundry in their bedroom would be the murderer,” Yuuri said empathetically, and Victor agreed.

They did a rapid-fire back and forth about what grocery items they usually selected. For some reason, it ended up in a heated argument about what brand of peanut butter was the best.

Victor gasped, scandalized, when Yuuri said in all seriousness that he liked Jif more than Skippy.

“You’re kidding, right?” Victor asked, but Yuuri pursed his lips and held his ground.

The argument in all seriousness perhaps _shouldn’t_ have lasted for minutes, but somehow it did.

“Fine,” Victor eventually huffed good-humoredly. “If we ever move in together, we’ll just have to buy both of them.”

There was a momentary silence, during which Victor realized what he had just said. His heart felt like it had just dropped into his stomach. Was it too soon to say something like that? Shit, it was _definitely_ too soon to say something like that.

“I mean,” he continued. “I—“

“We’ll just have to buy both of them,” Yuuri agreed and looked at Victor evenly.

Victor’s heart climbed back up to his chest. “Okay,” he said. “Okay, good.”

He turned to grab a mini cupcake and stuffed it into his mouth so he couldn’t say any more idiotic things within the next ten seconds at least.

Yuuri didn’t comment anything more on the matter, but he looked like he was hiding a smile behind the slice of melon he was eating.

When they had eaten more than enough and Victor felt like he was really going to need to roll down the hillside instead of walking, they gathered the rest of their leftover food and paced down the hill leisurely.

“So, what’s next?” Victor asked as they walked across the grass field, zig-zagging to dodge the picnic parties that had seemingly multiplied while they had been having their secluded picnic uphill.

Yuuri shrugged. “Well, most places are closed today, and the places that are not closed are full of people.”

It wasn’t really an answer, but Victor recalled Yuuri saying he wasn’t good with crowds.

“Well, we can always go to my place?” Victor suggested. “No crowds plus we can put the rest of the food in the fridge.”

When they got to his apartment, Victor went into the kitchenette to put away the picnic leftovers, while Yuuri sat on the couch with his phone.

When Victor came out of the kitchenette, he got stuck staring in the doorway. Yuuri was bent over his phone, seemingly oblivious to his surroundings. His hair was falling into his eyes again and there was a tiny smudge of something on his chin. It looked like a strawberry stain, or perhaps it was watermelon. Victor felt an almost irresistible urge to go lick it off, but instead he swallowed, went back into the kitchen and dampened a paper towel.

Yuuri looked up when Victor walked over.

“You have something—“ Victor made a gesture over his own chin and handed Yuuri the paper towel.

“Oh.” Yuuri took the offered item and wiped his chin. “Thanks.”

Victor sat down on the couch next to Yuuri, and for a moment there was a weird silence. Victor tried to come up with something to say, but all topics of conversation seemed to elude him. His eyes wandered over the room and met the shirt he had hung to dry on the backrest of one of the chairs last week. It was the one he had been wearing when he had come home soaking wet; still hanging forgotten on the backrest of the chair. Which then of course brought back all the doubts and thoughts about said day, because it was the one when Yuuri had canceled their date out of the blue.

Victor tried to think about the picnic, about Yuuri’s smile and all the positive things about this day, but his mind wouldn’t leave him alone. All that was going around in his head on its annoying, never-ending loop was the thought that when they were first meant to meet up, Yuuri sent Phichit instead, and after that he’d canceled their date on short notice without explanation. Victor couldn’t help but be curious and worried about it, because if it was going to be a constant theme, he wanted to know. No, he _needed_ to know. It was very stress-inducing, not knowing if the date they had agreed on was actually going to happen or not.

“So, about last time. I mean, the time we didn’t meet.” Victor’s words were hesitant.

“Yeah?” Yuuri flinched visibly.

Victor’s brain took notice of the reaction and told him to _shut the fuck up_ , but instead, more words came pouring out of his mouth, like he couldn’t stop them anymore. “I’m sorry to ruin the mood, but I’m used to being direct, and it’s killing me right now that I can’t do that with you. Or I can, but not when it comes to _certain things_ ,” Victor rattled out. He sighed and glanced at Yuuri. “I do respect your right to not tell me anything you don’t wanna tell, but you have to understand that it’s frustrating to me.”

Yuuri inhaled shakily. “I understand,” he said quietly. He wasn’t looking at Victor; his eyes were fixed on his phone that was lying screen down on his lap.

Victor closed his eyes for a moment. He was afraid he was doing irreparable damage to whatever was going on between them, but he couldn’t help it. He was terrified, but at the same time he was frustrated to no end, because his patience had a limit, too. Yuuri couldn’t just do disappearing acts and not explain anything and expect Victor to be cool about it forever.

“I understand,” Yuuri said again. He was still staring at his lap and his voice sounded muffled. “And I don’t _want_ to disappear on you and I want to explain things to you, but I’ve known you for a couple of weeks, and you should know from the letters that I don’t exactly go opening up about myself to strangers.”

It was Victor’s turn to flinch.

“Not that you’re a stranger to me,” Yuuri amended with a sigh. “Just. I need to do these things at my own pace. And if you need to go at a different pace, that’s okay. But if that’s the case, then I can’t offer you what you’re looking for.” He twisted his hands in his lap.

Victor stared at the wine box acting as coffee table, wondering if forming a relationship with someone was supposed to be a rollercoaster like this; that during the same day they were discussing buying two brands of peanut butter when moving in together, teasing and tossing grapes at each other, and then suddenly it was a complete turn of 180 degrees to the other end of the emotional spectrum.

The air in the room seemed to come to a standstill along with their conversation. Victor opened his mouth and closed it when he found there were no words coming out. Yuuri’s hand-twisting got more agonizing to watch.

“I’m sorry, Victor, but I need to go now.” Yuuri’s face was expressionless aside from the slightest tremble of his lower lip. He got up from the couch and started collecting his belongings mechanically.

“Yuuri…” All other words seemed to get stuck in his throat.

“No, I mean it, I really need to go.” Yuuri’s voice was shaking. “Sorry.”

Victor’s head was screaming red alert, but he didn’t know what to say to make things better. He could only stand awkwardly in the doorway while Yuuri gathered his things and left in silence.

When the door closed after Yuuri, Victor felt a lump gathering in his throat.

There was definitely some kind of a bond between them, but it was still fragile, and Victor was afraid he’d just damaged it beyond repair.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ~~Surprise, bitches, I bet you thought you’d seen the last of this fic.~~  
>  Sorry about the long break, I've been struggling with motivational issues with this one. Please, if you enjoy this fic, leave a comment. It motivates me to continue if I know people are enjoying this.  
> -  
> From angst to fluff to angst in one chapter, oops?  
> But hey, Chris got his mystery man! At least there’s that...  
> -  
> (English is not my first language and this chapter is not beta-read, so if there are any mistakes I apologize. Please let me know about them so I can fix them.)  
> -  
> Come find me on [tumblr](https://worldofcopperwings.tumblr.com/).  
> The chapter title lyrics are from Crywolf’s [The Hunger In Your Haunt](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b_2H59OEIKU).


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